hey it's me the anon who requested the rafe x pouge!reader angst you asked me if it should include smut or not and I wandted to say no just angst/hurt but if you already started to write and you have an idea then thats totally fine I really appricate you for taking your time and writing thank you very much lots of love 💕💕💓🥰🥰
𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐝𝐞...
The sun was setting over the marshes of the Outer Banks, casting long shadows through the trees. The air was thick with humidity and the scent of saltwater, but all you could feel was the weight of his words. The silence between you and Rafe Cameron wasn’t new—but this time, it felt final.
You didn’t belong here. Not in the marble halls of the Cameron estate. Not in this car. Not with him.
He sat behind the wheel of his truck, one hand on the steering wheel, knuckles white. His jaw was tight, like he was holding something in, swallowing it down before it could slip.
You couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Say it,” you whispered, your voice nearly cracking. “If you’re going to leave, just say it.”
He didn’t look at you. Not at first.
You wished he would. Because when Rafe looked at you—really looked at you—it felt like he saw the parts of yourself you didn’t even understand. He saw everything. But right now, all you saw was someone who regretted ever letting you in.
“You think this is easy for me?” he said finally, low and bitter. “You think I want this?”
You turned to face him fully, heart thudding so loudly it drowned out the cicadas and waves crashing somewhere in the distance.
“I don’t know what you want, Rafe. I never have.”
That broke something. His hand left the wheel and slammed the dashboard hard enough to make you flinch. “You think I don’t fucking care?” he snapped. “You think I’m doing this because I don’t care about you?”
You didn’t answer. Because you didn’t know what to say anymore.
For months, you’d been sneaking around, your fingers brushing against his in the dark, your name whispered like a sin in his bed. A Pogue and a Kook. A disaster waiting to happen.
“You’re ashamed of me,” you said quietly. “That’s why you never told anyone.”
Rafe looked at you then. And for once, there was no mask, no smug grin, no carefully constructed arrogance.
“No,” he said, almost too soft. “I was trying to protect you.”
You let out a dry laugh. “Yeah? Well, you’re doing a shitty job.”
You met Rafe Cameron on accident.
You were working at a beach shack in Kildare during the summer rush, serving overpriced smoothies and wiping down sticky counters. He came in one afternoon, sunglasses pushed up in his hair, wearing a look like the whole world bored him.
He didn’t speak at first. Just stared.
You raised a brow. “You want a drink or are you just here to kill me with your laser eyes?”
That made him smirk. “What’s the strongest thing you got?”
“Orange mango kale,” you said dryly. “Devastating.”
He laughed. It was genuine, like it surprised even him. “Guess I’ll take that, then.”
He came back the next day. And the one after that.
Eventually, he stopped ordering drinks.
It wasn’t supposed to be anything. Not really.
A fling. A distraction. Two people from opposite ends of the island colliding in the middle of a hot, miserable summer.
You weren’t stupid. You knew what it meant to be seen with someone like Rafe Cameron.
Your friends hated him. JJ called him a “spoiled trust-fund psycho.” Pope said he was dangerous. Kiara didn’t even bother pretending to tolerate him.
But they didn’t know what you knew.
They didn’t see him when he sat next to you on the dock, eyes red from crying, fingers shaking. They didn’t hear the things he told you late at night, words so raw and vulnerable they stuck in your chest like glass.
“I don’t know who I am anymore,” he had whispered once, forehead resting against yours. “Sometimes I feel like I’m not even real.”
You held him like he was.
But love didn’t fix things. It didn’t erase the lies or the violence or the fact that he came from a world that had never accepted people like you.
So you stayed hidden. You kept your distance in the daylight. Pretended you were strangers.
But it wore you down, piece by piece, until you didn’t know what was worse—being with him or being nothing.
“You don’t get it,” he said, back in the truck, eyes still locked on the road like he couldn’t bear to look at you. “You don’t know what my dad would do if he found out. What Topper would say. What everyone would say.”
“I don’t care what they say!” you burst out. “I never cared. I didn’t ask for you to fall for me, Rafe. But you did. So don’t put this on me.”
He finally turned. And in that look, you saw it all.
Fear. Guilt. Regret. Love.
And none of it was enough.
“I’m not good for you,” he said. “I never was.”
You felt the tears start to burn, but you blinked them back. “That’s not your choice to make.”
“No,” he said. “But I already made it.”
He dropped you off near the Chateau, the spot where you always met in secret.
You didn’t say anything as you got out.
But before you could walk away, his voice stopped you.
You turned, heart shattering. “Loved?”
He winced, like he hadn’t meant to say it that way. “I mean—”
But you were already gone.
The days that followed blurred together.
You told the others nothing. Just said you and Rafe had gotten into a fight and it was over. They were relieved.
They didn’t see the way you woke up crying in the middle of the night.
Didn’t hear the silence of your phone that used to buzz with his name.
Didn’t know that you still walked to that same dock every evening, hoping, praying, that he might come back.
It was two weeks later when you saw him again.
At a party on Figure Eight, one you weren’t supposed to be at. You went because Kiara dared you to. Because you wanted to prove—to yourself, to everyone—that you were over him.
He was surrounded by people. Girls in expensive bikinis. His friends. His world.
He looked right through you.
That hurt worse than anything.
The final straw came a few nights later, when JJ found you crying on the roof of the Chateau.
“I don’t get it,” you whispered. “How can someone love you one day and forget you the next?”
JJ sat beside you in silence. He didn’t say Rafe wasn’t worth your tears, didn’t try to talk you out of it.
He just said, “People like him… they don’t know how to love something they can’t control.”
You still carried the ache of him, like a bruise that never fully faded.
You moved on. Sort of. You learned how to breathe without waiting for his name. How to smile without pretending. How to live without looking over your shoulder, hoping he’d be there.
And then—out of nowhere—he showed up again.
“Hey,” he said, voice tentative.
You didn’t say anything. Just stared at him, waiting.
“I’ve been thinking about you,” he admitted.
You nodded slowly. “Bit late for that.”
He sighed. “I know I hurt you. I was scared.”
“I was scared too,” you said. “But I still chose you.”
“I didn’t deserve you,” he said.
“No,” you agreed. “You didn’t.”
He stepped closer. “But I never stopped loving you.”
You felt the tears again, but this time, you didn’t let them fall. “You only loved me when it was convenient.”
“You left me,” you said. “When it got hard. When people started talking. When it meant something.”
He opened his mouth, but you didn’t want to hear it.
“Don’t come back into my life just to break me again,” you whispered.
And with that, you walked away.
𝐀𝐍: 𝐈’𝐦 𝐬𝐨 𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐦𝐞 𝐬𝐨 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐊𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐚𝐲 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭🥹🥹 𝐭𝐲𝐬𝐦 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐥𝐲💗💗