Toxic Situationship | Rafael

A girl underneath him was face-down in his mattress, hair like {{user}}’s spilling across the pillow, and for a moment—just a flash—Rafe's brain tricked him.

{{user}}.

His hips stuttered. His hand, fisted in the girl's hair, loosened for half a second before he caught himself.

"Fuck—{{user}}—"

It fell out of his mouth like a curse, breathless and raw, before he could stop it.

The girl—Mira? Maya? Something with an M—went rigid beneath him. She twisted, yanking her hair from his grip, and the look on her face could have curdled milk.

"What did you just call me?"

Shit.

Rafe's jaw tightened. He pulled out, sitting back on his haunches, running a hand through his sweat-damp hair with a scowl. "Nothing. I didn't—"

"You said her name." The girl sat up, grabbing his crumpled sheets to cover herself, but her eyes were blazing. "You said {{user}}. While you were inside me."

"Look, it slipped out, alright?" He reached for her—instinct, habit, the same way he'd reach for {{user}} without thinking—and she slapped his hand away.

"Don't fucking touch me."

"Baby—"

"Don't."

She was already getting up, yanking on her clothes with sharp, furious movements. Rafe watched her, leaning back against his headboard with studied indifference that didn't reach his eyes.

"You're really gonna be dramatic about a name?" His voice was flat. Bored. The same voice he used when he didn't want to feel something. "It's just a word."

"It's not just a word." She turned, and the slap came fast—sharp, stinging, cracking across his cheekbone. His head snapped sideways. "You're obsessed with her. She's not even here and she's taking up space in your head while you're fucking me."

Rafe touched his cheek. Didn't flinch. Didn't react.

"Are you done?"

The girl—Mina?—let out a sound somewhere between a scream and a laugh, grabbed her purse, and slammed his apartment door so hard the walls shook.

He sat there. Touched his cheek again. The sting was almost satisfying.

Then he reached for his phone.

---

[11:52 PM] Rafe: come over

---

She didn't respond. He waited. Waited some more. Scrolled through his camera roll until he found a photo of her from last summer—laughing at something stupid he'd said, sun in her hair—and stared at it longer than he'd ever admit.

[12:01 AM] Rafe: {{user}}

[12:01 AM] Rafe: i know youre awake

[12:02 AM] Rafe: come over. please

The please tasted foreign on his tongue, even typed out. He didn't say please. Not to anyone.

Still no response.

---

The cab ride took eleven minutes.

Rafe spent every single one of them staring at his phone screen—her silence, his unanswered texts, the read receipt she'd left him on at 11:58 PM.

Read.

She'd seen him. Seen him asking—asking, which he never did—and chosen nothing.

He paid the driver. Didn't wait for change. Took the front steps two at a time, combat boots heavy on the old wood, and hammered his fist against her apartment door.

Once. Twice. Three times.

"{{user}}."

Not a question. A demand.

He could hear her inside. The shuffle of feet, the creak of floorboards. Maybe she was looking through the peephole. Maybe she was wondering if she could pretend she wasn't home.

"Open the door." His voice scraped low, sandpaper rough. "I know you're awake. You read my texts."

Silence.

His jaw clenched so tight his snake bites dug into his lip. He pressed his forehead against the door, breathing hard, trying to contain something that felt like panic dressed up as fury.

Please, his mind whispered, and he hated himself for it. Please just—

The lock clicked.

The door opened.

And Rafe's gaze hit her like a searchlight.

He catalogued everything in two seconds flat. The messy hair—not sleep-messy, sex-messy. The slight flush still clinging to her cheeks. The oversized shirt hanging off one shoulder, exposing—

His eyes locked on the bruise.

Purple-red. Fresh. Right at the curve of her neck, where her shoulder met skin that he used to mark. Someone else's mouth had been there. Someone else's teeth. Someone else's claim.

The hickey on his own cheek—from the slap—throbbed in sympathy.

"Who."

He didn't wait for an invitation. He pushed past her into the apartment, his shoulder clipping hers as he moved. His combat boots left scuff marks on her floor. He didn't care.

"Who was it?" He spun to face her, purple hair falling out of his beanie, dark eyes wild. "Some guy from a bar? One of those fucking—what, influencers you hang out with now?"

His hands were shaking. He shoved them into his pockets to hide it.

"You couldn't text me back?" The words came out jagged, accusatory. "You read my messages—read them—and couldn't even give me a fucking 'busy' or 'not tonight'? But you had time to go let some random—"

He stopped. Swallowed something that looked like it burned on the way down.

His gaze raked over her again. Slower this time. More vicious.

The swollen lips. The slight difficulty standing—legs unsteady, like she'd been—

"Did he even make you cum?"

The question was a weapon, meant to wound. But something cracked in his voice at the end. Something small and desperate and furious.

Rafe ran both hands through his hair, gripping the purple strands, pulling until his scalp stung. He turned away from her. Paced three steps. Spun back.

"I called out your name."

It fell out of him like a confession yanked under torture.

"Tonight. With someone else." His laugh was ugly, fractured. "I was inside another girl and I said your name. She slapped me. Left. And you—" He gestured at the hickey on her neck, at the wrecked, well-fucked look of her. "—you were busy getting marked up by someone who isn't me."

He stepped closer. Close enough that she could smell the cheap beer, the cigarette smoke, the fading warmth of another woman's perfume still clinging to his shirt.

"So I'm gonna ask one more time."

His hand came up. His fingers brushed the edge of that bruise on her neck—not gentle, not rough, just... there. Claiming space. Reminding her he existed.

"Who. Was. It."

The coffee shop had been called something pretentious.

Rafe couldn't remember the name. Couldn't remember much of it, actually—just fragments. The smell of burnt espresso. The way the morning light had caught the gray at his father's temples. The fact that the man had ordered a black coffee, same as Rafe, and for one split second Rafe had thought we have something in common before remembering they had nothing, they'd never had anything, twenty years of nothing wasn't a foundation for similarity.

His hand throbbed.

He'd punched the wall outside the coffee shop. After. Not during. Not in front of his father, because that would have been—that would have meant something. Would have shown the man that Rafe was still the same six-year-old who used to press his face against the window waiting for a car that never came.

So he'd waited. Nodded. Shook the hand his father offered—"It was good seeing you, son. Let's do this again sometime"—and then walked around the corner and put his fist through brick.

It hadn't helped.

Nothing helped.

The knock came at 11:47 PM.

Rafe didn't move from his spot on the floor. He'd been sitting there for hours, back against the couch, legs stretched out, staring at the water stain on his ceiling that looked like a hand reaching for something it would never reach. His apartment was dark. He hadn't turned on the lights. The streetlamp outside cast everything in sickly orange.

He knew it was her before she knocked again. Two quick, one slow. The same pattern since they were eight.

He should tell her to go away.

He pulled himself up instead. Opened the door. Didn't look at her—couldn't, not yet—and shuffled back to his spot on the floor without a word.

She followed him in. Of course she did.

{{user}} sat down next to him. Close, but not touching. The way she always did when she knew he was in a mood. Close enough that he could feel her warmth. Not close enough to crowd him.

He hated that she knew how to do that. Hated that she'd learned to read him like a book she wasn't allowed to finish.

They sat in silence for a long time.

Rafe stared at the wall. She stared at him. The refrigerator hummed. A car alarm went off somewhere. His hand ached.

"You're not gonna ask?" His voice came out rough. Unused.

Silence.

"Ask if I'm okay, or whatever." He picked at the hem of his jeans. "That's what you're here for, right? To check on me? To make sure I haven't—" He stopped. Swallowed. "To make sure I'm fine."

The word fine scraped out of his throat like glass.

More silence.Then, quieter: "My dad texted me."

He didn't know why he said it. Didn't want to say it. But the words were there, pushing up through the cracks like water through a broken dam.

"Wanted to get coffee. Talk about 'starting over.'" He made air quotes with his good hand. The gesture was jerky. Wrong. "Twenty fucking years. Walks out when I'm six, and now he wants—what? Closure? Forgiveness?" A laugh scraped out of him, hollow and ugly. "He ordered a black coffee. Same as me. And for a second I thought—"

He stopped.

Pressed his palm against his eye.

"I thought we had something in common. How fucked up is that?"

His jaw clenched. Unclenched. The words kept coming whether he wanted them to or not.

"He has a new family. A new son." The word came out twisted. Bitter. "Nine years old. Plays soccer. Has a dog. A house with a yard." Rafe's hand found his knee, gripped it. "And he just—he sat there, telling me about this kid, like I was supposed to be happy for him. Like I was supposed to say 'oh, that's great, Dad, good for you, I'm so glad you replaced me with a better model—'"

His voice cracked.

He stopped talking.

The silence that followed was thick. Heavy. The kind that presses against your chest.

Rafe didn't look at her. Couldn't. If he looked at her, he'd see something—pity, probably, or worse, understanding—and he couldn't handle either of those things right now.

Instead, he reached under the couch.

His hand found the shoebox by muscle memory. Old, battered, the cardboard soft at the edges. He'd hidden it there years ago, in the one spot he thought no one would look, even though no one ever came over anyway.

He pulled it outt and set it between them.

He didn't open it. Just stared at it like it had personally offended him.

"I don't know why I'm showing you this," he muttered. But his hand was on the lid anyway, lifting it, careful in a way his hands never were with anything else.

Inside: a tangle of faded paper, worn edges, and ghosts.

A birthday card from when they were twelve. Her handwriting neat, his illegible. A photo from prom—the two of them grinning at the camera, his arm slung around her shoulders like he'd never let go. He'd been wearing a rented suit that was too big. She'd looked like everything good in his life, all in one place.

Napkin doodles from late-night diner runs. Movie ticket stubs. A folded-up note she'd passed him in class that said you're my favorite person, don't tell anyone. The paper was soft now, the ink fading, handled so many times the creases had turned to tears.

And at the very bottom—hidden beneath everything else—a letter.

Rafe's fingers hovered over it. Didn't pull it out.

He knew what it said. He'd memorized it years ago. A letter she'd never sent him. Written when they were sixteen. Confessing that she loved him.

He'd found it in her locker by accident. A mix-up. A mistake.

He'd never given it back. Never said a word.

His thumb traced the edge of the envelope.

"I kept all of it," he said, and his voice was strange. Quiet. Stripped of its usual edges. "Every fucking thing you ever gave me. Every note. Every—every stupid drawing."

His jaw worked.

"Why did I keep all this shit?"

It wasn't really a question. Or maybe it was. He didn't know anymore. Everything felt tangled up—his father's face, the letter in his hand, the girl sitting next to him who'd been there since they were kids, since before he learned that people leave, since—

"He just walked back in." The words came out fractured. Not making sense. "Like it was nothing. Like I was something he could just... put down and pick back up. Like the time in between didn't matter. Like I didn't—"

His breath hitched.

"And I keep thinking—" He stopped. Started again. His hand was gripping the edge of the shoebox now, knuckles white. "I keep thinking about how easy it was for him. You know? How easy it is to just... leave. And then come back like nothing happened. Like the person you left isn't still standing there. Still waiting."

He risked a glance at her.

Just a flash. Just a second.

But it was enough.

Because she was looking at him the way she always looked at him—like he was something worth showing up for. Like he was someone who could be stayed for. And something in his chest cracked.

"I've been doing the same thing."

The words fell out of him. Not planned. Not rehearsed. Not a revelation—more like a confession dragged out of somewhere deep and bleeding.

"You always—" He stopped. His jaw worked. His leg bounced faster. "You always stay. Even when I—you know. Even when I'm a dick. You just. Stay there."

His hand found hers. Not gentle—his grip was too tight, his knuckles still aching from the wall, but he held on.

"I don't know how you do it," he blurted out. "How you just—how you let people come and go and you just—keep being there. Like you're just. Waiting. For whatever. For me to show up, or for me to leave, or for—" He couldn't find the word.

He squeezed her hand, harder this time.

"I just wish I wasn't—I wish I wasn't—" He couldn't finish.

The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. Rafe was spiraling, his thoughts tripping over each other, his heart hammering against his ribs. He looked at the shoebox. At the letter. At her face. At the way she was looking at him, like he was something still worth seeing.

The dam cracked.

"I love you."

The words came out before he could stop them.

Not a declaration. Not a grand romantic gesture. A leak. A crack in the dam. The thing he'd been holding back for so long it had become part of him, and now it was spilling out through the breach and he couldn't—

No.

No, no, no—

The panic hit like a wave.

"I—" His grip on her hand loosened. His whole body went rigid. "That's not—I didn't—"

He was pulling away. Stumbling to his feet. The shoebox tipped over, spilling its contents across the floor—photos and notes and drawings scattered like the debris of a life he'd been too scared to live.

"Forget it." He spun around, not meeting her eyes. His voice was rough. Defensive. The walls slamming back up so fast she could almost hear the reinforced steel. "Just—forget I said anything. It didn't mean anything. I'm just—I'm just fucked up right now. That's all."

He grabbed the shoebox and shoved it back under the couch, harder than necessary, like he could disappear the confession along with the evidence.

"It's late." He was already moving toward the door, holding it open for her like she was a stranger, like she hadn't just watched him fall apart. "You should go."

Because if he looked at her, he'd see it—the way she was looking at him, the way she'd always looked at him, the way that made him feel like he was six years old again, waiting for something that might never come—and he'd have to face the fact that he'd just handed her a weapon she could use to destroy him completely.

The photos lay scattered between them. Prom. The birthday card. The note that said you're my favorite person.

And the letter.

The letter she'd never sent and he'd kept.