torn veins

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/52948012.

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Category: F/M
Fandom: Outer Banks (TV)
Relationships: Rafe Cameron/Reader, Rafe Cameron/Original Female Character(s)
Additional Tags: ugh this is my baby, Rafe Cameron is Bad at Feelings, Angst, Cheating,
Implied/Referenced Cheating, Smut, eventually
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2024-01-10 Words: 2,160 Chapters: 1/?
 torn veins
by nodroids

Summary

live in glory, die in grace.

Henry and Joan Forester were itching to ask their daughter the big question, and so was her
brother, Liam, for different reasons. It was a simple question, very reasonable, too. In fact, so
reasonable that they waited until Rose Cameron brought it up when she had exhausted all her
favourite dinner conversations ( the Michelin star restaurant that recently opened up on
Figure Eight, her last vacation, and the Arden family's horrible banquets they keep insisting
on having every other month ).

"So," Rose started, a nervous smile playing on her red-tinted lips as she took the barest sip of
her wine. "When are you planning on going back to college, Bridget?" She seemed hesitant,
almost as though she didn't want to ask but had nothing to break the minute-long silence
with. Bridget, despite the question, found it laughable how difficult it was for all the people
over the age of twenty-one to remain in silence barring the sound of the knife scratching the
plate as Liam cut up his steak.

Bridget glanced at her mother, who simply shrugged before taking a gulp of her own wine.
"Soon," Bridget replied, smiling politely at the woman who seemed taken aback at the fact
that there were hardly any options of continuing the conversation. Bridget wasn't going to
feed into a conversation that would only take a turn for the worse were it to go on any further,
considering she wasn't the only almost-college-dropout on the table.

Her mother rolled her eyes. "That's a question we have all been wondering, Rose."

Ward Cameron laughed drily from the foot of the table. "Trust me, we have the same
problem, too."

He didn't make it obvious, but Bridget noticed how Rafe Cameron's jaw tightened at his
father's words and she shrunk back into her seat hoping they would move away from her and
Rafe not going to college. It was a surprise how their families ( save for Liam ) hadn't figured
out that Bridget and Rafe's decision of taking a gap year were done on the same day—same
time, in fact—and Bridget blamed it on the fact that her parents were too busy trying to
convince her to change her mind since they would rather bury an axe into their heart instead
of telling the Camerons that their daughter was taking a gap-year.

They knew a gap-year wasn't just a year, and they were probably right because Bridget was
nineteen after missing a whole year of college with zero plans of catching any flights from
North Carolina to Boston.

It was wishful thinking because Rose only waited a beat before saying, "Oh, neither of you
ever talked about your year in Boston. It might be nice to start school at the same time again."

Rafe chanced a glance at her, and she could do nothing but shrink further back into her seat,
hoping it would swallow her up. Still, everybody at the table now looked at her or Rafe with
probing eyes, believing that this line of questioning might convince them to go back to
college. Bridget only laughed nervously, causing Liam to choke on his water as he noticed
her distress and her way of handling it.
"They're kids, don't get on their cases," Liam said, laughing as he raised his chin up in
Bridget's direction.

Joan rolled her eyes at her eldest's words. "Liam, you're a year older. There's not enough
difference for you to call them kids." It seemed that she, too, was tired of this conversation. If
there was one thing the Foresters and Camerons hated more than their public perception
being bad, it was shattering the illusion of a perfect family to one another.

Rose muttered under her breath, but it was difficult for anybody on the table to catch except
for Rafe, who was sitting right beside her.

He raised a brow. "Did you say something?" He leaned his elbows on the table, craning his
neck to look at his step-mother who didn't bat an eyelash at his subtle hostility. It was almost
routine; it was completely obvious to everybody that Rafe didn't get along with Rose, and it
was also obvious that Rose did nothing more than tolerate him.

Bridget couldn't blame her.

"I said it would do you good to get a job. Like Bridget." It seemed as though the words were
pulled out of Rose as she stabbed the fork into the broccoli on her plate.

Rafe shifted his eyes towards her, a corner of his lip curling upwards as he nodded. "Yeah,"
he started. Bridget could only tug her bottom lip between her teeth knowing a metaphorical
blow was heading her way. "It would, except I wouldn't be making as much money as she
does." He lazily pointed a ring-clad finger at her.

She cleared her throat, coming up with a new topic of conversation that revolved around the
musical she saw in New York six months ago. Her father beat her to it, though. "Why's that?"
He now seemed completely out of touch with the conversation, completely unaware of the
festering tension between them.

She couldn't help but admire the intricate details on her plate—delicate patterns of swirls and
flowers that seemed to dance around the edge, a stark conversation to the brewing storm at
the table. Rafe's ring caught onto the glimmer of light from the chandeleir hanging above
them, and she realized that he never took it off.

"Oh, I don't know. Not everybody can be a server and make a boatload of tips," he replied,
and everyone at the table seemed to quiet down at the insinuation. Liam even stopped playing
with his steak.

Joan cleared her throat, eyeing her husband briefly who seemed offended by Rafe's words.
"Honey, didn't you say there was an opening at the country club? The Harrison kid got fired,
didn't he?"

Bridget hummed in response, now itching to get some air.

"When's Carson coming back from boarding school?" Sarah Cameron asked, and that seemed
to remind everyone that she was still there, through a full mouth of food. Her eyelashes
fluttered as she looked at Bridget, who sighed out of relief, and she just shrugged her
shoulders acting incredulous to the fact that she broke some intense, festering tension.

"Christmas. I think he wants to continue school from home," Henry replied. Bridget smiled at
the thought of her little brother back home—Figure Eight had not been the place for him as a
freshman in high school, but seeing him every Christmas and summer, she knew that he was
ready to enroll back at Kook Academy.

Sarah's eyes seemed to light up at that, too. "That's so great."

Dinner hadn't lasted for too long, but it did seem to last over two hours while Bridget was
sitting there. She had taken just under thirty seconds to say her goodbyes to the Camerons
before dashing up the stairs and into her room. Truthfully, it could've been worse. But the fact
that she had an interaction—albeit a very passing one—with Rafe had set her off completely.

Since she came back from college, her parents had organised a dinner or bruncheon with the
Camerons at least once each month but all of those seemed to revolve solely around her
mother, father, Rose, and Ward. Once, they were so engrossed in her conversation that Sarah
dumped the entire contents of her flask in Bridget's lemonade and convinced her to chug it
while the parents were discussing floor plans for their new properties.

She had not talked to Rafe at all.

"Were you high?" She jumped at the sound of her brother's voice as he burst through her door
without sparing a knock. She furrowed her brows as she processed his words and narrowed
her eyes to stare at his own red-rimmed ones.

"No, you idiot. You were," she replied, rolling her eyes and looking back down at her phone.

From her periphery, she could make out Rafe's figure walking into the room behind a brother
and she stiffened up. He couldn't be in her room. At least not when her brother was there, too.
It didn't seem that he minded though, as he circled around and past her brother and walked to
her nightstand, lifting up the top of her jewelry box and she could've sworn she had half a
mind to tell him off for touching her belongings.

"This is fresh," he murmured, chuckling as he lifted up her grinder and showed Liam. "You
didn't share," he said to her, a playful lilt to his voice that caused her to crane her neck and
meet his eyes.

Liam rolled his eyes, as if he were offended, and walked out of the room as soon as their
mother called for him to clear out the table. Bridget never wanted it to be her day of cleaning
after dinner except today, because she was stuck in the same room as Rafe Cameron alone.

She ignored him.

"I thought you didn't smoke," he continued, grabbing the lid of the grinder that she had forgot
to use to cover it before placing it in her box. He clicked his tongue, shaking his head as she
continued to scroll through her phone. "Little liar."

"Go away, Rafe." She had to force the words out of her mouth.

As if he hadn't heard her, he continued to say, "I'm going back to Boston after Christmas."

She huffed out a laugh. "No, you're not." Even though it had been over a year since her and
Rafe had a normal conversation, she knew he wouldn't ever return to school, especially not in
a month and a half.

Even though Rafe hadn't received any parental advice on how to approach girls as a kid (or
ever), he had still adopted the childlike mentality of being mean to the girls he likes.
Sometimes his friends would apologize to people he had wronged, claiming that: "He's just
Rafe, he didn't realize."

Sometimes, that was true, he truly didn't realize he was being a jerk. But most of the time, he
knew and he intended to be a jerk. He knew that Bridget had suffered through a relentless
amount of his meanness that developed when they were five and Sarah had come back from
kindergarten with the worst painting he had ever seen in his life, and Ward hung it up on the
refrigerator right next to Sarah's finger paintings. He didn't need a shrink to trace back the
reasons why he was an asshole to all the girls he liked—including Bridget—because he could
remember that day like it happened yesterday.

Rafe didn't know what perfect meant at that age, for he hadn't seen the world enough to
determine such a thing as 'not perfect.' But seeing Bridget every single day at school with her
blonde pigtails and personality that drew everyone around her in made him realize what
being perfect meant. She never fought for her parents' attention—not in the nineteen years he
had known her—but she still got it.

He hated that about her, and he wanted to rain on her parade like she did his every single day
by simply existing which reminded him that she was perfect and he was not.

He wasn't a man of change, which is why he didn't expect her to be surprised when he replied
to her saying, "Maybe I wanna see my girlfriend again." He smirked, but it was hard to move
his lips when he noticed how her hands freezed over her phone in the midst of liking her
friend's picture on Instagram. The red heart never showed up, and she forgot about her phone
the second those words left his mouth because she turned to meet his eyes, a furious frown on
her face.

"Then go," she spat, and he could notice the barest of twinkles coating her eyes as her jaw
clenched. "And don't you ever dare to bring up Boston to me."

Rafe would've been hurt if he didn't expect the exact words while going into this
conversation. Still, he felt one of his knees almost buckle because she remembered Boston,
and it affected her. That was better than her pretending it never happened—like how she had
the past year. He turned on his heels and began walking towards her door, an apology
weighing on his lips not just for this conversation, but for what happened a year ago.
"Also," she continued. Rafe almost smiled because these were more words than he expected
would come out of her mouth. "You're right, you wouldn't make as many tips as me. Nobody
wants to tip a jerkface like you."

"Jerkface?" he asked, turning around to briefly meet her eyes as he lightly chuckled. "All I
would need to do is have my ass out to make double what you do a day. Unfortunately, I'm
not interested in pimping myself out."
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