Faithful!reader who... was only seven when her father died, and doesn't remember much about him except the smell of his cologne and the way he called her his "little lovebug." Her grief swallowed her mother, who completely changed overnight, using religion to control her, and keep her forever.
Faithful!reader who... met Ward Cameron eight months after her father's passing. He seemed like an answer to her mother's frantic prayers. A successful man with a sprawling house on Figure Eight who promised to be a provider and a protector. At seven and a half, she didn't understand why her new bedroom was bigger than her whole old apartment.
Faithful!reader who... immediately bonded with Rafe. He was nine, a boy who seemed just as lost in this new family dynamic as she was. While Sarah and Wheezie were blood, they were Cameron girls through and through, Rafe and she were the outliers. He'd sneak her extra dessert when her mother wasn't looking and teach her how to wrestle with his friends. He became her best friend, her brother in a house that felt too big and too holy.
Faithful!reader who... felt as if Rafe was the only one who understood her when they were young. Once when she got a 98 on a test and her mother only remarked that it "wasn't perfect," she found her test paper on her desk later with a gold star drawn next to the grade.
Faithful!reader who... watched the rules solidify around her as she grew Her mother's faith turned to obsession. By twelve, jeans were off limits. By thirteen, only minimal makeup. By fourteen, her internet access monitored, her curfew earlier than any other teenager on the island. She became a living mannequin for her mother, always in skirts, her hair neatly styled, a cross resting between her collarbones.
Faithful!reader who... lives in a house of staggering double standards. She watches Sarah and Wheezie leave the house in tiny bikinis, while she has to hide her bikinis when she leaves. She sees Rafe and his friends cracking beers by the pool, Ward clapping one of them on the back, but if she so much as looks at the alcohol too long, she gets a lecture on temptation and sin.
Faithful!reader who... sees Sarah as her best friend, her sister, but feels an envy every time they're together. She loves Sarah's laugh, her easy confidence. But she hates it, too. She hates watching Sarah pull on a tiny tank top and mini shorts without a second thought, while she's wondering whether her top covers her stomach. She hates that Sarah's biggest worry is which boy to kiss, while hers is whether her skirt is an inch too short and might damn her soul.
Faithful!reader who... lives a lie, when she tells her mother she's going to a friends to "study," she's really getting ready for a bonfire at the Boneyard. When she says she's going to Rafe's practices they're actually going to a party in the golf course neighborhood. She knows if her mother ever found out, if she ever caught her she wouldn't just be grounded. She'd be packed off to that religious boarding school in the mountains before she could even say goodbye.
Faithful!reader who... feels the distance grow between her and Rafe as they enter high school. He's the golden boy, the star quarterback with a killer smile and a fast car. Everyone knows he's an asshole, but he's a rich asshole, so on the Outer Banks, that might as well be a crown. He starts coming home later, his eyes red rimmed and his jaw tight. She knows about the cocaine, sees the subtle tremor in his hands sometimes at dinner. He stops seeking her out, his world of parties and powder having no room for his little sister anymore.
Faithful!reader who... was aware of the shift in Rafe. It started when he was fifteen, maybe sixteen. The easy moments they shared began to curdle into something tense. His hugs became shorter, his touches more deliberate. She'd catch him looking at her across the dinner table, his gaze heavy and lingering, and a strange heat would pool in her stomach before he'd abruptly look away, his jaw tight. He started avoiding her, finding reasons to be out of the house, creating a distance that felt less like accidental abandonment and more like a choice. She didn't understand why then, and still doesn't understand now.
Faithful!reader who... first notices the change in the way Rafe's hands linger. It starts innocently, a passing touch that lasts a fraction of a second too long. He'll grab her arm to get her attention in the hallway, his fingers wrapping around her bicep, the pressure just a little heavier than necessary. He'll hand her the salt at dinner, his knuckles brushing against hers, and a jolt will shoot up her arm that confuses her. He always pulls away quickly, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes, but the touch hangs in the air.
Faithful!reader who... experiences the first truly intentional touch. It's after a family dinner where Ward made a pointed comment about her "making a great wife one day." She's helping clear the table, her hands trembling slightly with anger. Rafe comes up behind her as she's loading the dishwasher, his body close enough that she can feel the heat radiating from his chest. He reaches past her to put a plate on the top shelf, his arm brushing against her side, his hand splaying across her lower back for a moment to "steady himself."
Faithful!reader who... feels the boundaries weaken completely the week leading up to it. The touches become bolder, more frequent. He'll "fix" the strap of her tank top when her mother isn't looking, his knuckles grazing the skin of her shoulder. He'll move a piece of hair from her face, his thumb lingering on her cheekbone. He'll squeeze her thigh under the table when her mothers on one of her rants.
Faithful!reader who... is cornered by him in the kitchen the day before it happens. She's getting a glass of water, and he blocks her exit, leaning against the counter. He's not high, but there's an intensity in his eyes. He doesn't say anything, just looks at her, his gaze dropping to her lips, then back to her eyes. He reaches out and traces the line of her collarbone, his finger slow and deliberate. "You're wearing too much makeup." he murmurs, even though she's wearing the bare minimum. It's a nonsensical criticism, a transparent excuse to touch her, and her body hums with a response she can't control.
Faithful!reader who... learns to tend to his physical needs as a preview of marital duty. When he comes home with a split knuckle from a fight her mother is the one who sends her to him with the first aid kit. "You need to learn how to care for your future husband's body one day. Go help Rafe, it's good practice." She'll find him in his room, and he'll sit on the edge of his bed while she kneels on the floor, dabbing at his cuts with antiseptic. He'll watch her, his gaze heavy, as her hands gently clean his wounds. "You're good at this." he'll say, his voice low. "Gentle."
Faithful!reader who... is taught to serve as a form of wifely practice. Her mother often saying "A good wife serves her husband without being asked." She'll pour Ward a glass of iced tea the moment he sits on the porch, already knowing he's thirsty. She'll have Rafe's post workout Gatorade ready on the counter before he even comes inside.
Faithful!reader who... doesn't really have friends of her own. Her social circle is Cameron centric. The girls she sits with at lunch are Sarah's friends. The people she talks to at parties are Rafe's friends. She has no one who knows her favorite movie, who knows she hates blueberries, who knows what she wants to do after she escapes this island.
Faithful!reader who... is on display 24/7. Her mother's mantra is "You represent this family." She must where skirts, her makeup must be "natural but present" a hint of mascara, a touch of gloss. Her shirts must be fitted enough, as her mother says, "to signal you're a woman, but not so much as to invite sin." There are no days off. If she's not "put together" by the time breakfast is served, she's sent back to her room until she is.
Faithful!reader who... loves the rare moments of freedom. The only time she's allowed to be "less than" is when her mother and Ward are out of town and Rafe is left in charge. On those weekends, the rules loosen. She can wear sweatpants, she can go without makeup, she can eat cereal for dinner at 10 PM while watching a rated R movie on the couch with Rafe. Those weekends are a breath of fresh air, a glimpse into a life where she doesn't have to perform. It's during one of those weekends, sprawled on the couch in an old t shirt of Rafe's, that the line between them blurred for the first time.
Faithful!reader who... breaks one day over something as simple as breakfast. She's making toast and mentions, "I always used to burn the toast, but Dad would eat it anyway to save me the embarrassment." The silence that falls is immediate. Her mother's mask, dropping. "We do not speak of that man in this house." she grits out. "He was not a man of God. He is not your father. Ward is your father. You will honor him."
Faithful!reader who... stands up for herself for the first time, her voice shaking. "He was my father. I can remember him if I want to." The argument escalates, spiraling quickly. She's sent to her room to pray, but all she can do is cry.
Faithful!reader who... is cornered by her mother an hour later. "Your father is burning in hell for his sins! You will not join him by idolizing his memory! You have a good, godly man who has taken you in, given you this home, and you spit in his face!" The words are physical blows. When her mother finally leaves with Ward for the weekend, she's drained, sobbing into her pillow, loneliness consuming her.
Faithful!reader who... doesn't hear the soft click of her door opening. She's so lost in her grief she doesn't register the presence until the bed dips behind her. It's Rafe. She can smell it immediately, the sharp, chemical scent of cocaine clinging to him, mixed with the scent of his laundry detergent and cologne. He's high, his pupils blown wide, but the concern on his face is real.
Faithful!reader who... doesn't fight it when he pulls her into his arms. She just collapses against him, a decade of suppressed grief pouring out of her in tears. "I just miss him," she chokes out against his chest. "I don't even remember his face properly, but I miss him so much. And she won't even let me say his name. It's like I'm supposed to be... hollow. Like I'm not allowed to have a past."
Faithful!reader who... feels Rafe's arms tighten around her, his high making him softer towards her. "I'm sorry," he murmurs into her hair, his voice thick. "I should've-I haven't been... I'm sorry." The years of distance melt away during their shared misery.
Faithful!reader who... looks up at him, her face wet with tears, and sees something in his eyes that's always been there but she's never let herself name. He gently cups her jaw, his thumb stroking her cheek. The touch exciting, a jolt of life. When he leans in and kisses her, it's not a surprise. It feels like an inevitability, like a line being crossed that was drawn in the sand years ago.
Faithful!reader who... kisses him back with a desperation that scares her. It's not a brotherly kiss. It's messy and deep and tastes of salt and regret and the faint, bitter tang of cocaine. His hands, which have always been a source of comfort, start to move with a new intent, sliding up and down her back, over her skirt. She doesn't stop him. She arches into his touch, starving for affection, starving to be seen.
Faithful!reader who... loses her virginity to the only person who has ever truly known her. She falls asleep in his arms, the tears on her face finally dry. For the first time in a decade, the house doesn't feel like a prison. But she has him. And as she drifts off to sleep, she knows with terrifying certainty that this was not the end, but the beginning.
okay yalll this will be a cute series which will have eventual smut so stayy tuned
The job had been a last minute decision.
Your dad had mentioned it over dinner, casually explaining that Rafe needed someone to help with the horses for a few months
Cute but, you were uninterested.
until he mentioned the pay.
That was what got your attention
A few months of working with horses, staying at the farmhouse, and earning a lot more money than you’d expected made the decision pretty simple.
And you’d known Rafe for years anyway.
He and your dad were close friends for as long as you could remember, which meant you’d spent plenty of time around him growing up. He was familiar in the same way your dad’s oldest friends were
someone you could joke with, someone you trusted, someone whose voice you recognized before you even saw him
Still, living under the same roof was different
You carried your last bag through the front door and set it down beside the others
Rafe looked up from where he was sitting at the kitchen table.
“You made it.” He softly smiled
“Barely.” You panted, exhausted from carrying bags and suitcases and the long road trip it took to get here
He glanced toward the bags
“That’s a lot of stuff for a few months”
“I didn’t know what I’d need”
“You brought enough.”
You laughed “i think so”
He stood, walking over to help with the last bag
nodding toward the hallway.
“You want to see the room?”
He asked and you immediately nodded, just wanting to lie down already
You followed him upstairs, glancing around the house as you walked
It was quiet in a way your house never was. No television in the background, no cars going past every few minutes. Just the occasional sound of a horse outside
The room was beautiful.
It was warm and cozy with soft heavy curtains, a neatly made bed and little touches everywhere that made it less like a spare room and more like someone had actually taken the time to make it yours
“Oh gosh, it’s beautiful”
He crossed his arms with a small nod, watching as your mood immediately lifted. You wandered around the princess-like room, taking in every detail with a quick excitement that almost made him smile
“Yep, yeah” he mumbled
You turned toward him with a knowing look
“There’s no way, you did all this yourself”
“Fine, i’ll give credits to Hazel”
“Hazel?”
“told her you were comin’ down to help around here. she insisted on doin up y’ room”
Your eyes drifted back toward the bed, a genuien smile settling across your face
“She did all this for me?”
“Apparently.”
You looked at him again with a light in your eyes
“That’s so sweet,”
Rafe shrugged, trying to make it seem like it wasn’t a big deal
“Says it’s too manly and harsh for a little lady like you.”
“A Little lady?” You laughed softly
“Her words, not mine”
Was it?
“Right.”
He nodded toward the room
“Don’t let her hear you complain about anythin. She’ll have the whole place redecorated tomorrow”
You smiled, looking around once again, comfortably crossing your arms
“I think i like Hazel already”
“Yeah,” Rafe muttered “Everyone does.”
“Well, I guess i’ll find out”
He exhaled
“You should settle down, it’s getting late. Dinners in the fridge if you’re hungry, help yourself to anything”
“Thanks”
He started walking away before turning back
“Get some rest, Six-thirty alright?”
You stared at him, waiting for the just kidding
“Six thirty?!”
He nodded “that’s the time.”
“Six thirty just to feed horses?”
He chuckled
“Plenty more than that, sweetheart.”
“That’s basically the middle of the night,”
“You’ll survive” he slightly smirked
“guess i’ll see you then”You say sarcastically
“Night.”
You smiled to yourself, door clicking shut behind him
You stood there for a second before slowly turning back toward the room
Outside the window, the sun was beginning to disappear behind the feilds, leaving everything washed in a soft golden light. A few horses moved lazily through the paddock, their silhouettes disappearing into the evening.
It was quiet,
Peaceful.
Maybe this job would do you some good.
You sat yourself on the hard wooden floor, unpacking a few things before moving back to the window, watching the farm settle for the night.
Ughhhg i saw that photo of drew last night and just haad to think of something immediately he’s toooo fine im gonna cry😩
alsoo, if anyone had any feedback, requests or ideas of what you think/want to happen next, please let me know!! <3
blurb: after finding out your little secret, rafe is determined to have you
warnings: mentions of dark thoughts, smut, mdni, unprotected p in v, degradation, praising, spanking, tit play, oral (fem receiving), fingering, rough sex
wc: 2.2k
Rafe didn’t rush. He waited patiently. Watched you walk around campus, in those little skirts that made him want to bend you and fuck you over right there. Sat behind you in class while you bit your lip in concentration, writing down perfect notes. Made eyes with you across the quad, smirking when you looked away and hurried off. You were so sweet he could almost taste it.
The opportunity presented itself mere days later. A group project in a class where you didn’t have any friends. Fucking perfect. Just as you were about to tell the teacher you didn’t have a partner, Rafe smoothly slid into the seat without you. Topper could figure out who to pair with for once. He didn’t care.
“You wanna pair up?” Rafe asked, keeping his voice casual. But he could already feel his jeans tightening from the way you blinked at him. You sure were good at keeping up the act. And he wanted it that way. No one else could know about those sensual videos you’d posted on your private page. Not one other soul deserved to see the way you moved that body of yours. So fucking tempting.
“Um…” you murmured, looking around as if waiting for someone to step in. You really were so naive sometimes. As if anyone would save you from him. After a second, you had no choice but to nod. “Yeah… sure.”
Rafe’s smirk shifted into a grin. He couldn’t help it. “My place or yours?” He watched as your eyes widened, taking in the options. You really didn’t have another choice. Rafe didn’t even mind. Both choices were sinful in their own way. He imagined fucking you stupid in your bed. He’d bet your room would be so… soft, pink sheets and vanilla candles. And he’d ruin you right there, until all you could sob out was his name-
“Your place,” you finally answered, breaking Rafe out of his thoughts. He didn’t give up on those fantasies just yet. There would always be next time. All he needed was for you to say yes. And you’d walked straight into the lion’s den.
The doorbell rang exactly at 5 pm. When you both had decided to meet up. Rafe took his sweet time walking down the stairs, wanting to make you squirm while you waited. Just like you’d teased him with those fucking videos.
He watched the way you froze as he opened the door, your eyes locking on his tanned, shirtless body. Of course that was intentional on his behalf. You blushed a bit at the sight of his toned muscles before looking away and stepping inside while Rafe held the door open.
“Upstairs,” Rafe murmured, directing you towards the stairs. He couldn’t help but stare at your ass as you walked up, thinking about how good you’d look bent over. His jaw clenched.
Once you were both inside, Rafe closed the door, quietly locking it. If you noticed, you didn’t show it, plopping down nervously on the edge of the bed after Rafe. “D-do you want to start?”
“Sure…” Rafe replied, trying his best to pretend he cared. The act lasted about ten minutes before he dropped it.
You were in the middle of going through your notes and making the poster or some shit when Rafe spoke up. “So… I heard you dance,” he muttered casually.
You froze for a second at that, pen stilling before continuing. “I… No?”
Rafe smirked, taking the pen out of your hands slowly. “You know lying isn’t a good look for you, sweetheart,” he teased.
With no excuse to occupy yourself with, you finally met his eyes. “I-I’m not lying,” you mumbled, but it was weak.
“No?” Rafe pouted mockingly. “Then let’s pull up that tiktok account of yours, princess.” He watched as your face flushed at the knowledge of being caught. “Really shouldn’t be posting those videos for everyone to see…” he lectured, leaning closer, breath tingling your ear. “There’s a lot of bad bad men out there.”
You pulled back with glassy eyes, trying to stammer out something. “I- I wasn’t-”
Rafe cut you off with a chuckle. “Don’t need to keep up the act now, sweetheart,” he growled, moving your books off to the side. “Not so shy and innocent after all, are you?”
He watched you brace yourself with your hands behind you, giving him the perfect chance to push you back on the bed before climbing over you. The gasp that escaped you sent a thrill through him. You looked so fucking edible right now. All the things he wanted to do to you.
You didn’t push him back when he moved closer, gently kissing the spot just below your ear before nibbling on the lobe. You shivered, whimpering softly. Rafe groaned at the sound. “So fucking desperate, aren’t you, huh?”
He gently stroked a hand through your hair. “You don’t want anyone else in class to know about those videos, do you, baby? Hmm?” You looked up at him, eyes frantic as you shook your head. Rafe smirked as you played right into his hands. “Mm… that’s what I thought. You’ll be such a good girl for me, won’t you?”
You nodded instinctively, savouring the feeling of his hands as they slowly moved to peel off the fitted tank top you had on. Rafe almost moaned at the sight of your bare tits all exposed to him. Fucking hell, you didn’t even have a bra on. Were you trying to kill him?
You arched into his touch as Rafe leaned down, taking one into his mouth while pinching the other. “So fucking pretty,” he groaned against your nipple, the vibrations sending another chill through you.
Rafe wanted to savour every second. Tease you until you begged. But he also knew that was fucking impossible, considering how hard he was right now. So he pulled back, licking his lips for your eyes only before ripping off your little skirt, leaving you just in your lace panties.
You tried to cross your legs shyly, earning a sharp slap from Rafe directly to your clothed pussy, eliciting a whimper out of you. “Don’t fucking hide from me,” he bit out. “Not when you're teasing every man on the internet, sweetheart.” The words made your stomach flip.
Your panties were off the next second, discarded on the floor somewhere with the rest of your clothes. The sight of your pussy alone was something to be devoured. Fuck, Rafe was harder than he ever thought was possible.
“R-rafe,” you gasped as his finger trailed up your slit so teasingly, with just enough pressure to make you squirm.
Rafe smirked at your reaction. “So sensitive, huh? And I’ve barely even touched you.” Another smack to your clit followed, making you cry out. “Such a greedy little pussy.”
He didn’t waste another second before licking a stripe straight up your swollen cunt, hands holding your hips down as you tried to buck up. He sucked on your clit hungrily, tongue assaulting the tight bundle of nerves. The little whimpers and cries you let out only fueled him further, causing him to suck harder at your entrance before pulling back. You whined needily.
“Such a messy little slut,” Rafe growled, spreading your folds with two fingers, drenching his digits in the slick. “Dripping everywhere.”
He didn’t give you a second to react before flipping you onto your stomach, lifting your hips with his hands. Your back arched, lips parting on another whine as his hand came down hard on your ass. Rafe reached down to roughly tug off his boxers and sweatpants, rubbing his hard dick through your wetness.
“You’re gonna take all of me, aren’t you?” he teased, pushing in just the tip. Rafe could feel the way you were already clenching so tight, nodding in response to his words. You were going to take it all whether you liked it or not. He pushed in with one deep stroke, bottoming out with a groan.
You let out a little sob into the pillow, hands fisting in the sheets as your pussy enveloped every inch of him. “You’re so fucking tight,” Rafe purred, savouring the way your warmth swallowed all of him. He gave you another second before moving with a rough pace, sliding his cock all the way out before slamming back in.
“Mm- Oh! R-rafe…” The sobs of pleasure that fell from your lips were fucking sinful, a combination of quiet whimpers and muffled high-pitched moans. “Acting so innocent but here you are. Taking me like a good girl.” Rafe growled, watching the way your pussy fluttered so prettily around his length. “Look at that. All mine.”
His hands fisting in your hair, pulling you back onto his dick. “Rafe!” you squealed, feeling him press deeper at the new angle, your back arched further. He smirked, pounding harder, the sounds of skin on skin filling the room.
When his eyes fell on your phone on the nightstand, he had an idea, grabbing it with one hand, the other still tangled in your hair. “Open it,” Rafe ordered, handing you the phone. You barely managed to hold onto it, let alone type in the pin, shaking with the way he was fucking you.
“That’s it,” Rafe praised, speeding up his thrusts more as the bedframe shook. “Open your tiktok.”
You whined, but followed his instructions, pressing on the app icon, your eyes blurry with tears of pleasure. You dropped your head into the pillow to muffle a scream as Rafe hit the spot inside you.
Rafe smirked, knowing he’d found it before tugging you back up. He slowed down his thrusts painfully, biting down on your neck. “Now… save each one,” he murmured.
“Rafe, please!” you sobbed, needing him to pick up the pace again. Rafe watched as you tried to push back onto him, but then he fully stopped deliberately, causing you to cry out. Oh, poor thing. You needed him so bad. Needed to come.
“Now, now… be patient. Do what I say.” Rafe growled, gently stroking your hair. His lips turned up as you nodded, having no choice but to earn you pleasure. You quickly moved through each and every video, saving it to your camera roll.
Rafe started moving again soon enough, making you whimper as you sped up your actions. Three dots. Save. Scroll. You tried but couldn’t focus on anything, but the way hit that spot again and again, your moans slipping with each thrust.
When Rafe saw that you finally saved each one, he stopped again. You thought that was it, did you? You sobbed harder. “P-please! I need…”
“Yeah?” Rafe edged without making an effort to move. “Say it. Tell me what you need,” he coaxed gently, hand moving up your neck.
“Wanna come,” you whimpered, begging. He could tell you were so close to release, juices dripping down your thighs and onto the sheets. Such a whore. “Please, Rafe.”
Rafe’s smirk widened as his breath fanned over your ear. “Mm? There’s just one more thing you have to do, baby. Then I’ll let you come,” he promised. You were his now. And Rafe didn’t like to share.
You nodded, your brain turned to mush now. He’d fucked you stupid after all. All you craved was his permission now. “Please, I’ll do anything,” you sobbed, pussy aching around his cock. He had you just where he wanted you.
“Delete them all.” Rafe’s cold words made you freeze as his grip tightened around your throat.
“W-what?” you whispered, partially confused. Such a naive thing. There was no way in hell you thought he’d actually let you keep those up now that he had you like this.
“I said… delete. Them. All.” Rafe growled against your ear. Of course you’d fucking listen. “Don’t make me ask again.”
He could see the hesitation in your eyes, and it pissed him off. He was getting impatient now. But when he started to pull out just a bit, you whimpered. “Yes! Okay! I’ll do it.”
Rafe smirked, pushing back in. “That’s a good girl.” With each video you deleted, you felt Rafe speed up his thrusts, aiming to hit that spot deep inside you every time. Those videos were for his eyes only now.
Rafe let you drop into the sheets as you deleted the final one, taking your phone and tossing it off to the side. “You’re mine now, understand?”
You sobbed, nodding as his thrusts grew faster and sloppier as Rafe chased the high he’d been craving for weeks. “Say it,” he demanded, his grip on your hips bruising.
“I”m yours!” you screamed as he hit your spot one last time, sending you spiralling over the edge, coming hard. Rafe fucked you through your orgasm, reaching his climax in a few more strokes. “Fuck!” He spilt deep inside you, white lines of his cum spilling when he pulled out, falling down on his back beside you. God, he’d never felt so spent.
Your eyes were hazy when he glanced over, pulling you close. You were almost asleep. Clearly exhausted. So sweet and shy. His now.
a/n: part 2 to the previously requested part 1! this one is a lott longer and i honestly love this sm 🥲 this might be the best smut ive ever written 🤭 let's ignore that ive only ever written smut twice but trust more is coming sooonnnn! 💖✨ feel free to send in requests for fics, headcanons or moodboards ꫂ᭪݁
♡CW: Depression, ED/bulimia, self-harm references, incarceration, manslaughter, trauma, attempted assault (backstory), profanity, and heavy angst. The logistics abt like jail aren’t accurate. All characters are adults. If you don’t like, don’t read pls!!
♡ masterlist ♡
a/n: it’s finally out after two days😭😭I’ve been really mentally exhausted!
You hadn’t really known what you were expecting when you signed up for the church’s correspondence program.
Maybe that was the point.
The little pamphlet had been sitting on the table in the fellowship hall for three weeks before you finally took one. Write to someone who could use a friend.
You’d almost laughed when you read it. You didn’t feel particularly qualified to be anybody’s friend.
You were twenty-five years old and tired in a way that sleep didn’t seem capable of fixing. Depression had made everything feel muted around the edges. Your apartment was clean because cleaning was easier than thinking. Your cat was fed because somebody had to be. You went to work, came home, went to church when you could make yourself go, and tried to pretend you weren’t spending more and more time fighting your own thoughts.
The eating disorder was worse when you were lonely. The loneliness was worse when the eating disorder was worse. It was a stupid little circle that never seemed to end.
So when the church announced that they were looking for volunteers to write to incarcerated adults, you thought, Why not?
Maybe it would give you something to do outside yourself.
The man they assigned you was named Rafe Cameron.
Thirty-five.
Incarcerated for thirteen years.
Manslaughter.
The information sheet didn’t say much more than that. There was a brief explanation about his offense, how someone had tried to assault his mother and he stopped the man, and a reminder that correspondence with incarcerated people could be complicated. No promises of friendship. No promises of redemption. No expectation that either party would change the other’s life.
You appreciated that.
You didn’t want to change anybody’s life.
You just wanted somebody to talk to.
So you made a package.
Not anything impressive.
A homemade batch of Boy Bait, because you’d found the recipe online and the name had made you laugh cause of how silly it was. One M&M cookie. A picture of you with your cat sitting stubbornly in your lap, looking considerably more annoyed about the photograph than you were.
Then you sat down and wrote.
Your name.
Your age.
Nothing too specific.
You told him you were twenty-five and that you’d joined the church’s program because you had been dealing with depression and bulimia for a while and thought maybe talking to someone who was dealing with something different might help.
Then, because you were nervous, you rambled.
You told him about your cat.
You told him about how you hated folding laundry.
You told him you’d recently gotten obsessed with a television show and had watched three seasons in four days.
You told him you didn’t know what you were supposed to say to someone in prison.
Then you wrote, “I guess I just wanted to talk to somebody who’s going through something different. I’m tired of sitting alone with my own head all the time.”
You stared at that sentence for a long time.
Then you folded the letter.
You put it in the envelope.
And mailed it.
You didn’t expect an answer.
At least, you told yourself you didn’t.
Three weeks later, one appeared.
∘°∘♡∘°∘
“You sent me a fucking cookie.”
That was how Rafe Cameron’s first letter began.
Not Hello.
Not Dear—
Not even your name.
“You sent me a fucking cookie. Not even a whole package of cookies. One cookie. What the hell am I supposed to do with one cookie? The Boy Bait was good, though. Don’t know what the hell you put in it, but that shit disappeared quick. So I guess you got one thing right. Your cat looks like an asshole. And you write too much. I don’t know why the fuck you thought telling some stranger in prison about your depression was a good idea. I’m not a therapist. I don’t know anything about that shit. Everybody’s depressed. Everybody’s got problems. Doesn’t mean you gotta make a whole fucking personality out of it. And the eating thing? Bulimia, right? That’s what you said. Look, I’m gonna be straight with you. I don’t get it. If you’re hungry, eat. If you’re not, don’t. Seems simple enough to me. I don’t know why people make everything so complicated. You said you wanted to talk to somebody who’s going through more than depression. Well, congratulations. I’m in prison. Thirteen years. You wanted perspective? There you go. I don’t get to walk outside whenever I want. I don’t get to see my family whenever I want. I don’t get to fuck my girl back home, not like she’d wanna see me anyway. I don’t get to decide what I eat or where I sleep or who I spend my time around. So forgive me if I don’t have a lot of sympathy for somebody who’s sad in an apartment with a cat and all the bullshit I’m missing.”
You stared at the sentence until the words blurred and wiped your cheek. You hadn’t even realized you were crying.
“And before you ask, yeah, I know what I did. Manslaughter. That’s what the court called it. I don’t agree with them. Guy put his hands on my mother, he tried something. I mean he was my age and I knew I could take him.. I wasn’t gonna stand there and watch it happen. I pulled my gun. He died. They called it manslaughter. I call it doing what needed to be done. My mama comes first. My mother is dead now, though. So if you were looking for some inspirational prison story where I learned a lesson and became a better person, you picked the wrong guy. You seem nice. Too nice, probably. Don’t take that the wrong way. Just don’t expect me to sit here and hold your hand through your problems. I got enough of my own. The cookie was good. Send another one.”
You sat there for a long time. The room was quiet except for your cat moving around on the carpet. You looked at the photograph then back at the letter. You cried harder. Not because he’d called you weak, but because he’d been rude. It was because he’d taken something you’d been ashamed of and made it sound stupid.
Something you’d spent years trying to understand and hurt you enough and he turned it into a few careless sentences. You almost threw the letter away. Instead, you put it inside your desk drawer. You didn’t know why you were writing back. Should you fight fire for fire? Kill him with kindness? It felt like you were dealing with a stubborn donkey.
∘°∘♡∘°∘
“I cried when I read your letter.”
You stared at the sentence.
It felt humiliating to admit.
“I wasn’t going to tell you that. I thought it would make me look pathetic. But you said you wanted me to be honest, so I’m being honest. You were right about one thing. You aren’t my therapist. I wasn’t asking you to be. I wasn’t expecting you to fix me. I probably should’ve explained that better. But you were wrong about the other stuff. Depression isn’t just being sad. I know everybody has bad days. I know everybody has problems. That’s not what I’m talking about. And bulimia isn’t me deciding whether I’m hungry. If it were that easy, I wouldn’t have spent so much time wishing it was that easy. I’m not telling you this because I want sympathy. I’m telling you because you said you didn’t understand it, and I thought maybe you might want to. And I’m not going to apologize for being sad in an apartment with a cat. My cat is very good company, she cares. I’m sorry about your mother. I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t there. I don’t know whether the court was right or whether you were right. I don’t think I can decide that from one paragraph on a piece of paper. But I know what it’s like to lose somebody, and I’m sorry she’s gone. I also don’t think you’re some misunderstood hero. You don’t have to be. You can be somebody who did something terrible and still believe you had a reason for doing it. Those things can exist at the same time. You said you didn’t want an inspirational prison story. Good. I don’t want one either. I don’t need you to become a better person for me. I don’t need you to tell me everything happens for a reason. I don’t need you to tell me I’m beautiful or strong or that everything will get better eventually. I just want somebody to write to. You don’t have to understand my depression. You don’t have to understand my eating disorder. You can tell me about prison. You can complain about the food. You can tell me what you hate. You can tell me about your mother if you want. You can tell me about the stupidest thing somebody did in the cell block. You can tell me about a book you read. You can tell me nothing important at all. And yes, I will send another cookie if I’m able. But I’m not sending you two, never two. You’ll get too comfy.”
You folded the letter.
Before sealing the envelope, you unfolded the paper and wrote one more thing..
“P.S. My cat says she doesn’t like you either.”
∘°∘♡∘°∘
Rafe’s second letter came faster.
Two weeks.
You knew the handwriting before you even opened it.
∘°∘♡∘°∘
“Your cat can go fuck herself. Not literally. That sounds bad. I showed your picture to ny cellmate. He said your cat looks like she hates everybody (he called you pretty, asked if I had any other pictures, don’t worry I told the guy no) I told him that’s probably why you like her. And don’t get smart about the cookie. You said you’d send another one. I’m holding you to that. I want two. I didn’t mean to make you cry. I know that probably doesn’t mean shit coming from me after what I wrote. But I didn’t. I was pissed off. I get pissed off a lot. Been here long enough that sometimes I don’t know what else to do with it. Doesn’t excuse being an asshole. I still don’t understand the eating thing. Probably never will. Why’d you wanna throw your guts up, or workout till your legs burn, or do whatever you guys do. But I read the part of your letter where you said you wished it were easy. I guess I can understand wishing something were easy. Thirteen years is a long. People think you get used to it. Maybe you do. I don’t know. You get used to certain things. The noise. The doors. The schedule. People leaving. People not coming back. You get used to waking up and remembering you’re still here. That’s probably enough depressing shit for one letter. Tell me about your cat.”
You laughed softly.
For the first time in a long time, you didn’t feel like crying afterward. You pulled a fresh sheet of paper toward yourself and started writing.
∘°∘♡∘°∘
The next letter took you four days to finish. Not because you didn’t know what to say. But, somehow, you had too much to say.
Rafe had asked about your cat.
That shouldn’t have mattered as much as it did.
You sat at your kitchen table on Sunday afternoon with a mug of coffee going cold beside your elbow and your cat stretched across the other half of the table like she paid rent.
“Dear Rafe,
You’re an asshole, You asked about my cat, so I suppose I’m obligated to tell you about her. Her name is Clementine. She hates everyone except me, and I’m honestly not sure she even likes me that much. She follows me around the apartment but then gets offended when I try to pick her up. She sleeps on my pillow even though I have bought her approximately seven different beds. She knocked my coffee over yesterday. I don’t think it was an accident. You’d probably like her. She’s mean. You said something in your last letter that I keep thinking about. You said people think you get used to prison. Maybe you do. I don’t know. I’ve never been in prison. But I think I’ve gotten used to some things too. I’ve gotten used to waking up tired. I’ve gotten used to pretending I’m okay when somebody asks. I’ve gotten used to cancelling plans because I don’t feel like leaving my apartment. I’ve gotten used to looking at food and having an entire argument with myself about it. I’ve gotten used to feeling guilty for things I shouldn’t feel guilty for. I think I’ve gotten used to being afraid of my own brain.”
Your eyes stung.
“Sometimes when things get really bad, I don’t trust myself very much. I don’t want to get into details, because I don’t think that’s helpful for either of us. But I’ve had periods where I’ve hurt myself because I didn’t know what else to do with everything I was feeling. I’m telling you because you said thirteen years makes you understand what it feels like to wake up and remember you’re still there. I know that’s not the same thing. I’m not pretending it is. But I understood what you meant.”
You leaned back in your chair.
For a moment, you considered tearing up the entire page.
Then Clementine stepped directly onto it.
You looked down at her.
“Seriously?”
She blinked.
You sighed.
“You’re lucky you’re cute.”
She walked away.
“Anyway. That’s enough emotional oversharing for one letter..Tell me something about you instead. What were you like before prison? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. And don’t say ‘an asshole.’ I already know that.”
∘°∘♡∘°∘
Rafe’s response arrived eleven days later.
You’d were sitting on the floor when you opened it while Clementine was asleep beside your thigh.
The envelope was heavier than usual.
“First of all, Clementine sounds like a bitch. Second, you asked what I was like before this place. That’s not a short answer. I was spoiled. That’s probably the easiest way to put it. Rich kid. Entitled. Thought I could get away with anything. Most of the time I could. There I had a house that was bigger than some of the places I’ve seen people live in here. My family had money. My father had money. Everybody knew my last name. I wasn’t happy, though. People always think money means you’re happy. It doesn’t. My family was fucked up long before I ever got here. My mother was the only person who really knew me. She wasn’t perfect. Neither was I. But she was my mother. The guy I killed wasn’t some random innocent guy walking down the street. He was hurting her. I saw it happen. I don’t care what the court says. I don’t care what some lawyer says. I know what I saw. I know you said you don’t know if I was right or wrong. That’s probably the smartest thing you’ve said so far. Because you weren’t there, but I was. And sometimes I wonder if that’s the worst part. Because everybody wants you to feel something simple. Guilty. Innocent. Sorry. Angry. Whatever. They want a clean answer. I don’t have one. I don’t regret protecting my mother. I regret that she died anyway. I don’t talk about her much. So congratulations, you got me to talk about my mother in a letter to a stranger—don’t think I’m ignoring the other thing you told me. The self-harm shit. I don’t know what to say to that. Actually, that’s a lie. I know what to say. Don’t fucking do it. I don’t know what your life is like. I don’t know what your head sounds like when you’re alone. But I know what it feels like to have something happen that you can’t take back. Don’t give yourself another thing you can’t take back. And I’m not saying that because I’m some wise prison guy. I’m saying it because I don’t want to read one day that you’re gone. That would piss me off. As for the depression and eating stuff, I’m still probably going to say dumb shit. I’m not pretending I understand it now. But I’ll stop telling you it’s easy. Fair? Also, I’m not apologizing to your cat. Send another cookie.”
You sat there for several minutes after finishing the letter.
The room had gone quiet around you. You could hear the faint hum of the house, the occasional shift of Clementine somewhere nearby, but otherwise there was nothing demanding your attention. The letter remained open in your hands, your eyes drifting back over the same few lines even though you’d already read them.
Eventually, you folded it carefully along the existing creases.
You didn’t shove it into a drawer or leave it on your nightstand like you normally did with things you planned to deal with later. Instead, you walked over to the dresser and pulled open the same drawer where you’d kept the first letter.
You placed the new one on top.
Then you stopped.
For a moment, you simply looked down at the small stack.
Two letters.
That was all.
Two pieces of paper from a man you’d never met, someone who lived on the other side of walls and locked doors and a life so different from yours that sometimes it was difficult to understand how you’d ended up corresponding with him in the first place.
And somehow, they already felt important.
You closed the drawer.
The next letter you sent was shorter.
Not because you had less to say.
If anything, you had too much.
You were just afraid of saying too much of it.
You sat at your desk with the paper in front of you, pen tapping lightly against the edge while you tried to decide where to start. Eventually, you wrote the easiest thing first.
“You got me to laugh twice in one letter, which I think means you’re obligated to keep writing to me. Also, Clementine would like it formally stated that she doesn’t care about your opinion. Thank you for what you said about the other stuff. I don’t really know what else to say about it. I’m trying. Some days are better than others.
You stopped again.
The room suddenly felt much quieter.
There were things you could have written. Things you could have explained if you knew how to put them into words without feeling exposed.
“I’m not asking you to keep me safe. That’s not your responsibility. But it helped hearing somebody say they didn’t want me to disappear. I don’t think anybody really says things like that to me. Anyway, I made more Boy Bait. I’m sending two cookies this time. Don’t get used to it.”
You folded the letter when you were finished. Your eyes moved toward the drawer.
After a moment, you pulled it open again and reached inside for another photograph of Clementine. She was sprawled upside down across the couch, completely unconcerned with how ridiculous she looked. Her paws were hanging over the edge, her face caught at an angle that somehow made her look both adorable and deeply offended by the existence of cameras.
You tucked the photograph into the envelope.
Then, underneath it, you wrote one final note.
“Proof that she’s an asshole. Only sometime”
You sealed everything before you could change your mind.
Then you mailed it.
By the time Rafe received it, he’d already started waiting for your letters.
He wouldn’t have admitted that.
Not to you.
Not to his cellmate.
Not even to himself, if he’d been asked directly.
But he knew the schedule.
He knew approximately how long the mail took to reach him. He knew which days the guards usually distributed correspondence and which days were more likely to leave him with nothing but junk mail and paperwork.
And on those days, he found himself looking toward the door.
It annoyed him.
Everything annoyed him lately.
The food.
The noise.
The rules.
The lights that never seemed quite right.
The constant movement around him.
The way people stared.
The way the years kept stacking up behind him until thirteen of them had somehow become his new normal.
His mother was still dead.
That fact hadn’t become easier with time.
Neither had the memory of being twenty-two.
Sometimes it came back with an almost painful clarity—the person he’d been before everything split into a before and an after, before thirteen years of his life disappeared behind concrete and steel.
There were days when he wondered if that version of himself even existed anymore.
But the letters didn’t annoy him.
Not really.
Your letters were strange.
You didn’t treat him like a monster.
You didn’t treat him like some tragic victim, either.
You didn’t ask invasive questions about his crime or expect him to explain every ugly part of his past. You didn’t preach at him. You didn’t tell him that everything happened for a reason.
You certainly didn’t tell him that God had some grand plan for his life.
You didn’t even tell him he was a good person.
You just talked.
That was the weird part.
You complained.
You told him about your cat.
You told him about the stupid things that happened at work.
You told him when you’d had a bad day.
Sometimes you wrote about things that were difficult, and sometimes you spent three pages talking about absolutely nothing.
Once, you’d spent nearly half a page complaining about a woman at the grocery store who had stopped in the middle of an aisle and apparently decided that was the perfect place to contemplate her entire existence.
Rafe had laughed when he’d read it.
Actually laughed.
It had caught him so off guard that he’d had to read the paragraph twice.
His cellmate had looked over at him like he’d finally lost his mind.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
His cellmate glanced at the letter in Rafe’s hands.
“You laughing at a letter?”
Rafe folded the page immediately.
“Mind your business.”
A snort came from the other side of the room.
“You got a girlfriend?”
Rafe’s expression hardened.
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
His cellmate raised an eyebrow but, mercifully, didn’t push.
Rafe ignored him.
Instead, he looked down at the photograph you’d sent.
Clementine.
She looked exactly as unpleasant as you’d described.
Somehow, that made the picture better.
He turned it over once in his hands, studying the ridiculous little photograph with an expression he would’ve denied having if anyone had pointed it out.
Then he smiled.
Just slightly.
He hated that.
He hated how easily you’d started slipping into his routine.
He hated that he could recognize your handwriting from across the room now. Hated that he knew the shape of your letters, the way you crossed certain words out when you changed your mind, the little habits that had become familiar without him ever consciously deciding to memorize them.
He hated that when you didn’t write, he noticed.
Most of all, he hated that there was a small, stubborn part of him that looked forward to the mail.
Because looking forward to things in prison was dangerous.
Hope had a way of making the days harder.
It was easier to survive thirteen years when you’d convinced yourself there was nothing waiting for you on the other side of them. Easier when tomorrow was just another day to get through, another date on the calendar, another stretch of time that didn’t require you to want anything.
Rafe had gotten very good at not wanting things.
He’d had to.
Then you started sending letters.
And suddenly, somewhere beyond those walls, there was a woman with a cat who apparently hated his opinions, made homemade cookies, complained about grocery-store etiquette, and still wanted to hear from him.
He didn’t know what to do with that.
It would’ve been easier if you treated him differently.
If you were afraid of him.
If you judged him.
If you wanted something from him.
Any of that would’ve made sense.
Instead, you simply kept writing.
And Rafe had spent thirteen years learning how to live without caring.
You were making that harder.
∘°∘♡∘°∘
Your third letter arrived on a Tuesday.
Rafe knew it was yours before he even saw the handwriting properly. There was something about the envelope that had become familiar to him by then, enough that his attention caught on it almost automatically when the mail was handed over.
He waited until he was back in his cell before opening it.
The paper unfolded in his hands.
At the top, you had written:
“Rafe,”
That was all it said at first.
He frowned, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked down at the page. There was enough empty space beneath his name to make him suspicious.
Then he continued reading.
“I’m mad at you.”
Rafe sat back.
Oh.
Interesting.
He read the next line.
“Not because of anything you said this time.”
That only made him more curious.
“Because you were right about one thing. I don’t think I realized how much I was waiting for your letters until yesterday when there wasn’t one.”
The corner of Rafe’s mouth twitched.
“I checked the mailbox three times.”
He laughed.
Quietly, almost under his breath.
“This is embarrassing.”
He could practically hear your voice when he read it.
Then:
“I think you’re becoming my friend.”
His smile disappeared.
Rafe read the sentence again.
Then again.
Friend.
The word sat strangely in his head.
He hadn’t had one of those in a long time.
Not really.
There were people he knew. People he’d grown up with. People who had visited him. People who occasionally wrote. There were names he recognized and faces he could still remember, even after thirteen years had changed more than he liked to admit.
But a friend?
Somebody who actually knew things about him?
Somebody who asked questions because they genuinely wanted the answers instead of because they were trying to figure out what kind of person he was?
That was different.
Rafe looked back down at the letter.
You continued.
“I don’t know if you’re comfortable with that. If you’re not, you can tell me.”
His thumb rested against the edge of the paper.
Then:
“But I like writing to you.”
Rafe stared at the sentence.
There was another paragraph.
“You’re rude. You’re stubborn. You’re occasionally an asshole. You’re also funny, even though I don’t think you’re trying to be. And you actually listened when I told you something mattered to me, even if you didn’t understand it.”
He swallowed.
“I think that’s worth something.”
For a moment, he didn’t move.
His thumb ran slowly along the edge of the paper, smoothing down a corner that didn’t actually need smoothing.
He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with that.
Nobody had said something like that to him in a long time.
Not without wanting something in return.
Then he reached the final paragraph.
“Anyway, I’m going to stop being sentimental now because I already regret writing this.”
A tiny smile appeared despite himself.
Of course you regretted it.
He could almost picture you sitting somewhere with the letter in front of you, realizing you’d said too much and immediately wishing you could take half of it back.
Then he read the final question.
“Tell me something you miss.”
Rafe stared at it for a long time.
There were a thousand answers.
His mother’s voice.
The ocean.
His old house.
Driving.
Music played too loud.
The feeling of being able to walk somewhere without asking permission.
His bedroom.
His freedom.
His life.
The list kept going.
He could’ve filled the entire page.
Maybe several.
But he couldn’t write all of that.
Not yet.
So he picked one.
He turned the page over and rested his pen against the paper.
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Then he wrote:
“I miss my mother’s cooking.”
He stopped.
The sentence looked far more honest sitting there in his own handwriting than it had sounded in his head.
He kept going.
“Not even anything fancy. She used to make this chicken dish. I don’t remember what she called it. Probably had some stupid French name. I just remember the smell.”
His pen slowed.
“I miss hearing her in the kitchen.”
He stared at the sentence.
There was something uncomfortable about seeing it written down. Something too real about admitting that after thirteen years, what he missed wasn’t necessarily some huge, dramatic memory.
Sometimes it was just a kitchen.
A smell.
His mother’s voice somewhere in the next room.
He looked away for a moment before forcing himself to continue.
“I miss being twenty-two.”
That one was harder.
He sat there with the pen hovering over the paper.
Then he wrote:
“I thought I had forever.”
Rafe looked toward the narrow window.
There wasn’t much to see.
There rarely was.
Just another reminder that the world continued beyond the walls without him.
He lowered his eyes again.
“I think everybody thinks that when they’re young.”
He paused.
Then continued.
“You don’t understand that your life can split in half in one afternoon.”
His jaw tightened.
“One minute you’re one person. Then something happens and you’re somebody else forever.”
He didn’t write about the gun.
He didn’t write about the body.
He didn’t write about the courtroom.
He didn’t need to.
You hadn’t asked him to explain the worst day of his life.
You’d only asked what he missed.
So he gave you the pieces he could.
“I miss not knowing what prison smells like.”
Rafe actually laughed at that one.
It was easier to make a joke out of it.
He added:
“You probably don’t want to hear about that.”
Then, after a moment:
“I miss the ocean.”
That was easier.
He could almost feel it when he wrote the words.
“I miss driving.”
Another.
“I miss being able to decide where I was going.”
His pen stopped.
He looked back at your letter.
I think you’re becoming my friend.
The sentence was still there.
Still strange.
Still sitting somewhere inside his chest where he wasn’t used to feeling anything anymore.
He picked up the pen again.
“I don’t know if I’m good at being somebody’s friend anymore.”
He stared at it.
Something about the word bothered him.
He crossed out anymore.
For a second, he considered leaving it that way.
Instead, he rewrote the sentence.
“I don’t know if I’m good at being somebody’s friend.”
Better.
More honest.
Then:
“But I like your letters.”
Rafe frowned.
Too vulnerable.
His pen hovered over the sentence.
He almost crossed it out.
Almost.
He didn’t.
Instead, he continued.
“So I guess you can keep writing.”
He hesitated.
Then, after a moment:
“And I’ll keep answering.”
That was enough.
He signed his name at the bottom.
Then he looked over the letter one last time.
It felt strange.
Not bad.
Just strange.
He’d spent years making sure he didn’t need much from anybody. He’d learned how to let days pass without expecting anything from them.
And now there was a person on the outside waiting for his letters.
A person who had admitted she checked the mailbox three times.
A person who called him an asshole and then sent him cookies anyway.
A person who had somehow become his friend without either of them deciding when it happened.
Rafe picked up his pen one last time.
He added a final sentence.
“Tell Clementine she owes me a cookie.”
He folded the letter carefully.
For once, when the door closed behind him, he didn’t feel quite so angry.
∘°∘♡∘°∘
You read his answer at midnight.
You were sitting cross-legged on your bed in an old pair of pajamas, the room quiet except for the faint hum of the air conditioner. Clementine was curled against your hip, warm and heavy beneath the blanket, occasionally shifting in her sleep whenever you moved too much.
The letter was open in your lap.
You read the part about his mother twice.
Not because you hadn’t understood it the first time, but because something about the way he’d written it made you slow down. There was no joke attached to it. No sarcastic comment to soften the edges. No attempt to make himself sound tougher than he was.
Just the truth.
You read the part about being twenty-two next.
Then the sentence about how his life had split in half.
You stared at that one for a while.
You didn’t know what had happened that afternoon thirteen years ago. Not really. You knew the version that existed in court records, the version people had repeated to you when they’d explained who you were corresponding with. You knew the charge. You knew the sentence. You knew enough to understand that there were things about Rafe Cameron’s life that couldn’t be condensed into a few paragraphs on a form.
But you didn’t need to know everything.
For the first time, Rafe Cameron stopped being the prisoner they’d assigned you.
He was just Rafe.
Thirty-five years old. Thirteen years into a sentence he’d spent more than a decade learning how to live inside. Still angry about things he couldn’t change. Still stubborn enough to argue with you over things that absolutely did not matter. Still carrying his mother with him, even after all those years.
Still remembering the ocean.
Still missing the stupid, ordinary freedom of getting into a car and driving somewhere just because he felt like it.
And, apparently, still learning how to write to somebody without turning every feeling into a joke or an insult.
You understood that last part more than you wanted to admit.
And you?
You were still you.
Still depressed. Still struggling. Still trying to figure out your relationship with food and with yourself. Still having days when getting through the day felt considerably harder than it should have. Still learning that being unhappy didn’t mean you had to punish yourself for it.
Nothing about you had magically changed just because someone had started writing you letters from a prison.
There hadn’t been some grand transformation.
No sudden healing. No miraculous forgiveness. No moment where everything inside your head suddenly became quiet.
There were still bad days.
There were still mornings when you woke up already exhausted. There were still nights when you couldn’t quite explain why you felt so low. There were still things you didn’t know how to talk about, even on paper.
But now, once a week, there was a letter.
Sometimes it was two pages.
Sometimes it was five.
Sometimes it was barely a page at all, because Rafe had apparently decided that spending half a page complaining about prison food counted as meaningful correspondence.
You’d started looking forward to those letters anyway.
It was such a small thing that you almost felt ridiculous admitting how much it mattered.
You would hear the mail come in and find yourself wondering if there would be an envelope with his handwriting on it. You’d tell yourself you didn’t care either way, and then you’d notice yourself checking again ten minutes later.
Sometimes the letters were important.
Sometimes they weren’t.
You wrote about Clementine, who had apparently become a recurring character in his life despite having never met him. Rafe had developed very strong opinions about her simply based on the stories you told him, most of which seemed to consist of her sleeping wherever she pleased and looking at you like you were personally responsible for every inconvenience in her life.
He complained about prison food.
A lot.
You told him about your terrible coworkers, including the one who somehow managed to make every shift feel twice as long just by being there. Rafe told you about the books he’d been reading, occasionally getting so invested in explaining one that you’d forget for a moment where the letter had come from.
You told him when you’d had a bad week.
He never told you that he understood.
You appreciated that.
Instead, he started asking a simple question.
You doing okay?
Sometimes you lied.
Sometimes you wrote back that you were fine because explaining why you weren’t felt like too much work.
Eventually, though, you started telling him when the answer was no.
And Rafe stopped trying to fix it.
He didn’t send you paragraphs about how everything would be okay. He didn’t pretend he had some perfect answer. He didn’t tell you that you needed to look on the bright side or that other people had it worse.
He just wrote back.
Sometimes it was only a few lines.
Sometimes it was something as simple as, Bad day, huh? I’m here.
And somehow, that was better.
Because neither of you needed to be fixed.
Maybe that was the thing you’d both been getting wrong.
You weren’t a project for him, and he wasn’t a project for you. Neither of you could undo what had happened before the letters started. You couldn’t reach through the paper and change thirteen years of his life, and he couldn’t reach through it and erase the difficult parts of yours.
All you could do was keep writing.
Keep answering.
Keep showing up.
Two people sitting on opposite sides of a system neither of you completely understood, passing small pieces of your lives back and forth on paper.
A story about a cat.
A complaint about prison food.
A terrible day at work.
A book.
A memory.
A question.
A little bit of honesty.
And, eventually, a little bit of trust.
You looked down at the letter again, your thumb resting against the edge of the paper.
Clementine shifted beside you and tucked herself closer to your side.
You smiled faintly.
Maybe that was enough for tonight.
Not healing.
Not fixing.
Just being noticed.
Just knowing that somewhere, on the other side of all those locked doors and rules and miles, somebody knew you were still there.
And for now, that was enough.
∘°∘♡∘°∘
Four months into writing to Rafe, you made a decision that felt considerably more terrifying than mailing a photograph of your cat to a convicted prisoner.
You agreed to visit him.
The church coordinator had brought it up first.
Not in a pushy way. She hadn’t tried to convince you or make it sound like some obligation you’d taken on when you joined the correspondence program. She’d simply mentioned it one afternoon in that careful, almost conversational tone people used when they knew they were asking something that might be difficult.
“He asked if you’d ever consider an in-person visit.”
You’d stared at her.
Then you’d spent approximately three days pretending you hadn’t heard her.
Because you’d never met Rafe.
Not really.
You knew his handwriting better than his face. You knew he hated the prison coffee, that he missed his mother’s cooking, and that he’d somehow developed a personal vendetta against Clementine despite having never actually met her.
You knew he swore entirely too much.
You knew he had a habit of answering serious questions with jokes and jokes with even more jokes. You knew he’d been incarcerated for thirteen years, and you knew enough about his past to understand that there were parts of his life he still struggled to talk about.
You knew him through ink.
Through envelopes.
Through the pieces of himself he’d decided were safe enough to put onto paper.
But sitting across from him?
That felt different.
That made everything real.
Still, you agreed.
And now you were sitting in the visitation room with your hands folded tightly in your lap, trying very hard not to look as nervous as you felt.
The room was exactly as unpleasant as you’d imagined.
Too bright. Too cold. Too many rules posted in places where everyone was expected to read them. Plastic tables. Hard chairs. The faint, constant noise of people talking around you.
There were families scattered throughout the room, some speaking quietly, others leaning across their tables as though trying to close the distance between themselves and the person sitting opposite them.
You kept looking toward the door.
You told yourself you weren’t waiting impatiently.
You were just looking.
There was a difference.
Then the door opened.
Your heart jumped.
Rafe walked in.
You knew immediately that it was him.
Not because you’d seen photographs.
You hadn’t.
But because you’d spent four months learning the shape of his personality through ink. You knew the cadence of his jokes, the way he wrote when he was annoyed, the way his handwriting seemed to get messier whenever he had something difficult to say.
None of that prepared you for the actual person.
He was taller than you’d pictured.
Broader, too.
There was something imposing about him even in prison clothes, something rough around the edges that the letters hadn’t quite captured. His expression was guarded as he stepped into the room, his eyes moving over the tables and faces before he finally looked up.
Then he saw you.
He stopped.
For half a second, neither of you moved.
You simply stared at each other.
Then his mouth tilted into a crooked smile.
“Well, fuck.”
Your eyebrows lifted.
He started walking toward you.
“You’re real.”
You blinked.
“Last time I checked.”
He laughed.
It was a low, surprised sound, and hearing it in person was strange. Familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.
Then his eyes moved over you again.
“Pretty little birdy.”
Your smile vanished.
“I’m sorry?”
He stopped.
You stared at him.
He stared back.
Your brow furrowed.
“Did you just call me a bird?”
Rafe’s eyebrows shot up.
“No.”
“You literally did.”
“I said pretty little birdy.”
“That’s still a bird.”
For a second, he looked genuinely confused.
Then he rubbed his jaw.
“I meant it affectionate.”
You crossed your arms.
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not a bird.”
“I know you’re not a fucking bird.”
“Then why did you call me one?”
He stared at you like he was trying to figure out how the conversation had somehow gotten away from him.
Then he sighed.
“Jesus Christ.”
Your eyebrows furrowed again.
He noticed.
“You do that every time I swear.”
“Because you swear every thirty seconds.”
“I do not.”
“You just did.”
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Then pointed at you.
“See? That’s why I like you.”
You blinked.
He sat down across from you.
“And I’m not calling you a bird in some misogynistic way,” he added. “I’m not saying you’re delicate or helpless or whatever the fuck. I mean it like—”
He gestured vaguely, clearly struggling to explain something that had sounded much simpler in his head.
“Like you’re… small.”
Your eyes narrowed.
“That isn’t helping.”
“Pretty.”
You blinked.
“What?”
“I mean you’re pretty.”
Your face warmed.
Rafe seemed to realize what he’d said at exactly the same time you did.
He leaned back in his chair.
“That’s what I meant.”
You looked down at your hands.
“Oh.”
“Pretty little birdy,” he repeated, quieter this time. “Affectionate. That’s all.”
You hesitated.
Then sighed.
“Fine.”
His grin returned immediately.
“Good.”
“But I still don’t like it.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
“I absolutely will not.”
“We’ll see.”
You rolled your eyes.
He laughed.
And somehow, just like that, the awkwardness broke.
For the first few minutes, you talked about absolutely nothing.
The weather.
The prison food.
Clementine.
You told him she’d knocked over another cup of coffee.
“She’s got something against coffee,” you said.
Rafe shook his head.
“She’s got something against you having joy.”
You frowned.
“Why are you always insulting my cat?”
“Because she’s not here to defend herself.”
“She’s a sweet girl.”
“She’s a criminal.”
You stared at him.
“You’re literally in prison.”
There was a beat of silence.
Rafe looked at you.
Then he laughed so hard he had to turn his head away.
“Okay,” he said, still laughing. “That was good.”
You smiled.
“I’ve been saving that one.”
“I can tell.”
The conversation became easier after that.
He asked about your work, and you complained about your boss. He listened with the same attention he’d given your letters, occasionally making some dry comment that made you laugh despite yourself.
He asked whether you’d made more Boy Bait.
You told him yes.
He nodded approvingly.
“Good.”
You looked at him.
“You sound like you’ve been waiting.”
“I have.”
Your eyebrows rose.
“You could’ve just said you missed my letters.”
“I did not say that.”
“You implied it.”
“I did no such thing.”
“You absolutely did.”
He shook his head.
“You talk too much.”
“You’ve said that before.”
“Because it’s still true.”
You smiled.
“You like it.”
He looked at you for a second.
Then shrugged.
“Maybe.”
You weren’t sure what to do with that.
So you looked down at your hands.
For a little while, neither of you spoke.
There was a comfortable silence between you.
Not awkward.
Not empty.
Just quiet.
It was strange how quickly that had happened. Four months of letters had somehow made sitting across from a stranger feel less like meeting a stranger and more like finally putting a voice and a face to someone you’d already gotten to know.
Eventually, Rafe leaned forward.
“So.”
You looked up.
“So?”
“You gonna tell me what you actually meant in those letters?”
Your brow furrowed.
“About what?”
“Your depression.”
You went still.
“And the bulimia.”
Your fingers tightened together.
Rafe noticed immediately.
His expression changed.
Not dramatically. Just enough.
“I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable.”
“I know.”
“You said you wanted me to understand.”
“I did.”
“So explain it.”
You took a slow breath.
You weren’t sure how to explain something that had taken you years to understand yourself. There wasn’t one neat definition for it, no single sentence that could make another person understand what it was like from inside your own head.
Still, you tried.
“Depression isn’t just being sad,” you began.
Rafe nodded.
You continued.
“It’s like… everything becomes harder. Getting out of bed. Taking a shower. Answering messages. Eating. Sleeping. Sometimes things that used to make me happy just don’t.”
He didn’t interrupt.
That was the first thing you noticed.
He simply listened.
“It isn’t always crying, either,” you said. “Sometimes I don’t feel anything. I can be surrounded by people and feel completely disconnected from them.”
Rafe’s expression had gone serious.
You looked down.
“And bulimia is… complicated.”
“Okay.”
“It’s not just eating too much.”
“I know.”
You gave him a look.
He immediately raised his hands.
“I’m listening.”
You continued.
“It’s tied to everything else. Shame. Anxiety. Feeling like I need control. Sometimes I’ll eat because I’m overwhelmed or upset, and then I feel horrible about it. And then I try to compensate for it.”
You didn’t give details.
You didn’t need to.
Rafe seemed to understand enough.
“It’s not a choice where I wake up and decide to have an eating disorder.”
“I get that.”
You looked at him.
“You didn’t before.”
His face tightened.
“No.”
“You told me to just eat if I was hungry.”
“I was an asshole.”
You almost smiled.
“Yes.”
“Still am, probably.”
“Definitely.”
He nodded once.
“Fair.”
You looked down at your hands again.
“I don’t want you to fix it.”
“I’m not gonna.”
“I just want you to understand that when I’m having a bad day, telling me to just eat or stop being sad doesn’t help.”
Rafe was quiet.
He looked down at the table, his fingers tapping once against the surface before going still.
Then he rubbed the back of his neck.
“I’m sorry.”
You blinked.
“What?”
“I’m sorry.”
His voice was quieter now.
“For what I said in that first letter.”
You stared at him.
He looked uncomfortable.
Not defensive.
Not angry.
Just guilty.
“I didn’t understand it,” he admitted. “I thought I did. I didn’t.”
You swallowed.
“It’s okay.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
You didn’t answer.
He rubbed the back of his neck again.
“I was a dick.”
“You were.”
He gave you a look.
You shrugged.
“You were.”
“Yeah.”
A tiny smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“Still sorry.”
You nodded.
“Thank you.”
He leaned back.
For a moment, neither of you spoke.
Then, apparently deciding that the conversation had become far too sincere for his liking, Rafe suddenly flexed his arm.
You stared at him.
“What are you doing?”
He flexed again.
“Nothing.”
“You’re literally flexing.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You are.”
He glanced down at his own arm as though he’d only just noticed what it was doing.
“Huh.”
You squinted at him.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you flexing?”
“I’m not.”
“You’ve done it three times.”
He shrugged.
“Maybe I’ve been working out.”
You stared at him.
“Okay?”
“Just saying.”
“Congratulations?”
His mouth twitched.
“You think they’re bigger?”
You blinked.
“Are you seriously asking me to evaluate your muscles right now?”
“No.”
“Because it really sounds like you are.”
“I’m not.”
“You absolutely are.”
He flexed again.
You covered your face with one hand.
“Oh my God.”
He laughed.
“What?”
“You are acting like a high school boy.”
“Maybe I just wanted you to notice.”
You lowered your hand.
“Notice what?”
He flexed his arm again.
You stared at him for a long second.
Then shook your head.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Didn’t say I wasn’t.”
“You were being all serious five minutes ago.”
“People can be serious and have muscles.”
“Apparently.”
He grinned.
You couldn’t help laughing.
And that was how the first visit went.
Not dramatic.
Not life-changing.
Just two people talking.
You told him about Clementine. He told you about the prison’s terrible coffee. You explained something he’d misunderstood, and he apologized. Then, because apparently he couldn’t tolerate sincerity for more than five consecutive minutes, he started flexing his arms like an obnoxious teenage boy.
It was oddly comforting.
You left the visitation room with a strange feeling in your chest.
Not happiness exactly.
Something softer.
You hadn’t forgotten the things you struggled with.
You hadn’t magically become okay.
Rafe hadn’t become a different person, either.
He was still rough around the edges. Still foul-mouthed. Still stubborn. Still incarcerated for a crime he insisted had been justified.
But now he had a face.
A voice.
A laugh.
A ridiculous habit of flexing whenever he didn’t know what to do with himself.
And when you looked back before leaving, he was still watching you.
ohhhh i need 30 more of these on my desk ASAP!!!! i fucking adore this reader, she’s so me as unfortunate as that sounds :( thank you for writing this with such care, as someone who has struggled with an ed, severe depression, and self-harm, it’s clear you actually took the time to understand how it feels <3
I’m so happy you enjoyed and I’m glad I could represent these struggles well!! I’ve struggled with these things to and I needed a way to express myself. Thank you for reading luv :) 💗💗
♡CW: Depression, ED/bulimia, self-harm references, incarceration, manslaughter, trauma, attempted assault (backstory), profanity, and heavy angst. The logistics abt like jail aren’t accurate. All characters are adults. If you don’t like, don’t read pls!!
♡ masterlist ♡
a/n: it’s finally out after two days😭😭I’ve been really mentally exhausted!
You hadn’t really known what you were expecting when you signed up for the church’s correspondence program.
Maybe that was the point.
The little pamphlet had been sitting on the table in the fellowship hall for three weeks before you finally took one. Write to someone who could use a friend.
You’d almost laughed when you read it. You didn’t feel particularly qualified to be anybody’s friend.
You were twenty-five years old and tired in a way that sleep didn’t seem capable of fixing. Depression had made everything feel muted around the edges. Your apartment was clean because cleaning was easier than thinking. Your cat was fed because somebody had to be. You went to work, came home, went to church when you could make yourself go, and tried to pretend you weren’t spending more and more time fighting your own thoughts.
The eating disorder was worse when you were lonely. The loneliness was worse when the eating disorder was worse. It was a stupid little circle that never seemed to end.
So when the church announced that they were looking for volunteers to write to incarcerated adults, you thought, Why not?
Maybe it would give you something to do outside yourself.
The man they assigned you was named Rafe Cameron.
Thirty-five.
Incarcerated for thirteen years.
Manslaughter.
The information sheet didn’t say much more than that. There was a brief explanation about his offense, how someone had tried to assault his mother and he stopped the man, and a reminder that correspondence with incarcerated people could be complicated. No promises of friendship. No promises of redemption. No expectation that either party would change the other’s life.
You appreciated that.
You didn’t want to change anybody’s life.
You just wanted somebody to talk to.
So you made a package.
Not anything impressive.
A homemade batch of Boy Bait, because you’d found the recipe online and the name had made you laugh cause of how silly it was. One M&M cookie. A picture of you with your cat sitting stubbornly in your lap, looking considerably more annoyed about the photograph than you were.
Then you sat down and wrote.
Your name.
Your age.
Nothing too specific.
You told him you were twenty-five and that you’d joined the church’s program because you had been dealing with depression and bulimia for a while and thought maybe talking to someone who was dealing with something different might help.
Then, because you were nervous, you rambled.
You told him about your cat.
You told him about how you hated folding laundry.
You told him you’d recently gotten obsessed with a television show and had watched three seasons in four days.
You told him you didn’t know what you were supposed to say to someone in prison.
Then you wrote, “I guess I just wanted to talk to somebody who’s going through something different. I’m tired of sitting alone with my own head all the time.”
You stared at that sentence for a long time.
Then you folded the letter.
You put it in the envelope.
And mailed it.
You didn’t expect an answer.
At least, you told yourself you didn’t.
Three weeks later, one appeared.
∘°∘♡∘°∘
“You sent me a fucking cookie.”
That was how Rafe Cameron’s first letter began.
Not Hello.
Not Dear—
Not even your name.
“You sent me a fucking cookie. Not even a whole package of cookies. One cookie. What the hell am I supposed to do with one cookie? The Boy Bait was good, though. Don’t know what the hell you put in it, but that shit disappeared quick. So I guess you got one thing right. Your cat looks like an asshole. And you write too much. I don’t know why the fuck you thought telling some stranger in prison about your depression was a good idea. I’m not a therapist. I don’t know anything about that shit. Everybody’s depressed. Everybody’s got problems. Doesn’t mean you gotta make a whole fucking personality out of it. And the eating thing? Bulimia, right? That’s what you said. Look, I’m gonna be straight with you. I don’t get it. If you’re hungry, eat. If you’re not, don’t. Seems simple enough to me. I don’t know why people make everything so complicated. You said you wanted to talk to somebody who’s going through more than depression. Well, congratulations. I’m in prison. Thirteen years. You wanted perspective? There you go. I don’t get to walk outside whenever I want. I don’t get to see my family whenever I want. I don’t get to fuck my girl back home, not like she’d wanna see me anyway. I don’t get to decide what I eat or where I sleep or who I spend my time around. So forgive me if I don’t have a lot of sympathy for somebody who’s sad in an apartment with a cat and all the bullshit I’m missing.”
You stared at the sentence until the words blurred and wiped your cheek. You hadn’t even realized you were crying.
“And before you ask, yeah, I know what I did. Manslaughter. That’s what the court called it. I don’t agree with them. Guy put his hands on my mother, he tried something. I mean he was my age and I knew I could take him.. I wasn’t gonna stand there and watch it happen. I pulled my gun. He died. They called it manslaughter. I call it doing what needed to be done. My mama comes first. My mother is dead now, though. So if you were looking for some inspirational prison story where I learned a lesson and became a better person, you picked the wrong guy. You seem nice. Too nice, probably. Don’t take that the wrong way. Just don’t expect me to sit here and hold your hand through your problems. I got enough of my own. The cookie was good. Send another one.”
You sat there for a long time. The room was quiet except for your cat moving around on the carpet. You looked at the photograph then back at the letter. You cried harder. Not because he’d called you weak, but because he’d been rude. It was because he’d taken something you’d been ashamed of and made it sound stupid.
Something you’d spent years trying to understand and hurt you enough and he turned it into a few careless sentences. You almost threw the letter away. Instead, you put it inside your desk drawer. You didn’t know why you were writing back. Should you fight fire for fire? Kill him with kindness? It felt like you were dealing with a stubborn donkey.
∘°∘♡∘°∘
“I cried when I read your letter.”
You stared at the sentence.
It felt humiliating to admit.
“I wasn’t going to tell you that. I thought it would make me look pathetic. But you said you wanted me to be honest, so I’m being honest. You were right about one thing. You aren’t my therapist. I wasn’t asking you to be. I wasn’t expecting you to fix me. I probably should’ve explained that better. But you were wrong about the other stuff. Depression isn’t just being sad. I know everybody has bad days. I know everybody has problems. That’s not what I’m talking about. And bulimia isn’t me deciding whether I’m hungry. If it were that easy, I wouldn’t have spent so much time wishing it was that easy. I’m not telling you this because I want sympathy. I’m telling you because you said you didn’t understand it, and I thought maybe you might want to. And I’m not going to apologize for being sad in an apartment with a cat. My cat is very good company, she cares. I’m sorry about your mother. I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t there. I don’t know whether the court was right or whether you were right. I don’t think I can decide that from one paragraph on a piece of paper. But I know what it’s like to lose somebody, and I’m sorry she’s gone. I also don’t think you’re some misunderstood hero. You don’t have to be. You can be somebody who did something terrible and still believe you had a reason for doing it. Those things can exist at the same time. You said you didn’t want an inspirational prison story. Good. I don’t want one either. I don’t need you to become a better person for me. I don’t need you to tell me everything happens for a reason. I don’t need you to tell me I’m beautiful or strong or that everything will get better eventually. I just want somebody to write to. You don’t have to understand my depression. You don’t have to understand my eating disorder. You can tell me about prison. You can complain about the food. You can tell me what you hate. You can tell me about your mother if you want. You can tell me about the stupidest thing somebody did in the cell block. You can tell me about a book you read. You can tell me nothing important at all. And yes, I will send another cookie if I’m able. But I’m not sending you two, never two. You’ll get too comfy.”
You folded the letter.
Before sealing the envelope, you unfolded the paper and wrote one more thing..
“P.S. My cat says she doesn’t like you either.”
∘°∘♡∘°∘
Rafe’s second letter came faster.
Two weeks.
You knew the handwriting before you even opened it.
∘°∘♡∘°∘
“Your cat can go fuck herself. Not literally. That sounds bad. I showed your picture to ny cellmate. He said your cat looks like she hates everybody (he called you pretty, asked if I had any other pictures, don’t worry I told the guy no) I told him that’s probably why you like her. And don’t get smart about the cookie. You said you’d send another one. I’m holding you to that. I want two. I didn’t mean to make you cry. I know that probably doesn’t mean shit coming from me after what I wrote. But I didn’t. I was pissed off. I get pissed off a lot. Been here long enough that sometimes I don’t know what else to do with it. Doesn’t excuse being an asshole. I still don’t understand the eating thing. Probably never will. Why’d you wanna throw your guts up, or workout till your legs burn, or do whatever you guys do. But I read the part of your letter where you said you wished it were easy. I guess I can understand wishing something were easy. Thirteen years is a long. People think you get used to it. Maybe you do. I don’t know. You get used to certain things. The noise. The doors. The schedule. People leaving. People not coming back. You get used to waking up and remembering you’re still here. That’s probably enough depressing shit for one letter. Tell me about your cat.”
You laughed softly.
For the first time in a long time, you didn’t feel like crying afterward. You pulled a fresh sheet of paper toward yourself and started writing.
∘°∘♡∘°∘
The next letter took you four days to finish. Not because you didn’t know what to say. But, somehow, you had too much to say.
Rafe had asked about your cat.
That shouldn’t have mattered as much as it did.
You sat at your kitchen table on Sunday afternoon with a mug of coffee going cold beside your elbow and your cat stretched across the other half of the table like she paid rent.
“Dear Rafe,
You’re an asshole, You asked about my cat, so I suppose I’m obligated to tell you about her. Her name is Clementine. She hates everyone except me, and I’m honestly not sure she even likes me that much. She follows me around the apartment but then gets offended when I try to pick her up. She sleeps on my pillow even though I have bought her approximately seven different beds. She knocked my coffee over yesterday. I don’t think it was an accident. You’d probably like her. She’s mean. You said something in your last letter that I keep thinking about. You said people think you get used to prison. Maybe you do. I don’t know. I’ve never been in prison. But I think I’ve gotten used to some things too. I’ve gotten used to waking up tired. I’ve gotten used to pretending I’m okay when somebody asks. I’ve gotten used to cancelling plans because I don’t feel like leaving my apartment. I’ve gotten used to looking at food and having an entire argument with myself about it. I’ve gotten used to feeling guilty for things I shouldn’t feel guilty for. I think I’ve gotten used to being afraid of my own brain.”
Your eyes stung.
“Sometimes when things get really bad, I don’t trust myself very much. I don’t want to get into details, because I don’t think that’s helpful for either of us. But I’ve had periods where I’ve hurt myself because I didn’t know what else to do with everything I was feeling. I’m telling you because you said thirteen years makes you understand what it feels like to wake up and remember you’re still there. I know that’s not the same thing. I’m not pretending it is. But I understood what you meant.”
You leaned back in your chair.
For a moment, you considered tearing up the entire page.
Then Clementine stepped directly onto it.
You looked down at her.
“Seriously?”
She blinked.
You sighed.
“You’re lucky you’re cute.”
She walked away.
“Anyway. That’s enough emotional oversharing for one letter..Tell me something about you instead. What were you like before prison? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. And don’t say ‘an asshole.’ I already know that.”
∘°∘♡∘°∘
Rafe’s response arrived eleven days later.
You’d were sitting on the floor when you opened it while Clementine was asleep beside your thigh.
The envelope was heavier than usual.
“First of all, Clementine sounds like a bitch. Second, you asked what I was like before this place. That’s not a short answer. I was spoiled. That’s probably the easiest way to put it. Rich kid. Entitled. Thought I could get away with anything. Most of the time I could. There I had a house that was bigger than some of the places I’ve seen people live in here. My family had money. My father had money. Everybody knew my last name. I wasn’t happy, though. People always think money means you’re happy. It doesn’t. My family was fucked up long before I ever got here. My mother was the only person who really knew me. She wasn’t perfect. Neither was I. But she was my mother. The guy I killed wasn’t some random innocent guy walking down the street. He was hurting her. I saw it happen. I don’t care what the court says. I don’t care what some lawyer says. I know what I saw. I know you said you don’t know if I was right or wrong. That’s probably the smartest thing you’ve said so far. Because you weren’t there, but I was. And sometimes I wonder if that’s the worst part. Because everybody wants you to feel something simple. Guilty. Innocent. Sorry. Angry. Whatever. They want a clean answer. I don’t have one. I don’t regret protecting my mother. I regret that she died anyway. I don’t talk about her much. So congratulations, you got me to talk about my mother in a letter to a stranger—don’t think I’m ignoring the other thing you told me. The self-harm shit. I don’t know what to say to that. Actually, that’s a lie. I know what to say. Don’t fucking do it. I don’t know what your life is like. I don’t know what your head sounds like when you’re alone. But I know what it feels like to have something happen that you can’t take back. Don’t give yourself another thing you can’t take back. And I’m not saying that because I’m some wise prison guy. I’m saying it because I don’t want to read one day that you’re gone. That would piss me off. As for the depression and eating stuff, I’m still probably going to say dumb shit. I’m not pretending I understand it now. But I’ll stop telling you it’s easy. Fair? Also, I’m not apologizing to your cat. Send another cookie.”
You sat there for several minutes after finishing the letter.
The room had gone quiet around you. You could hear the faint hum of the house, the occasional shift of Clementine somewhere nearby, but otherwise there was nothing demanding your attention. The letter remained open in your hands, your eyes drifting back over the same few lines even though you’d already read them.
Eventually, you folded it carefully along the existing creases.
You didn’t shove it into a drawer or leave it on your nightstand like you normally did with things you planned to deal with later. Instead, you walked over to the dresser and pulled open the same drawer where you’d kept the first letter.
You placed the new one on top.
Then you stopped.
For a moment, you simply looked down at the small stack.
Two letters.
That was all.
Two pieces of paper from a man you’d never met, someone who lived on the other side of walls and locked doors and a life so different from yours that sometimes it was difficult to understand how you’d ended up corresponding with him in the first place.
And somehow, they already felt important.
You closed the drawer.
The next letter you sent was shorter.
Not because you had less to say.
If anything, you had too much.
You were just afraid of saying too much of it.
You sat at your desk with the paper in front of you, pen tapping lightly against the edge while you tried to decide where to start. Eventually, you wrote the easiest thing first.
“You got me to laugh twice in one letter, which I think means you’re obligated to keep writing to me. Also, Clementine would like it formally stated that she doesn’t care about your opinion. Thank you for what you said about the other stuff. I don’t really know what else to say about it. I’m trying. Some days are better than others.
You stopped again.
The room suddenly felt much quieter.
There were things you could have written. Things you could have explained if you knew how to put them into words without feeling exposed.
“I’m not asking you to keep me safe. That’s not your responsibility. But it helped hearing somebody say they didn’t want me to disappear. I don’t think anybody really says things like that to me. Anyway, I made more Boy Bait. I’m sending two cookies this time. Don’t get used to it.”
You folded the letter when you were finished. Your eyes moved toward the drawer.
After a moment, you pulled it open again and reached inside for another photograph of Clementine. She was sprawled upside down across the couch, completely unconcerned with how ridiculous she looked. Her paws were hanging over the edge, her face caught at an angle that somehow made her look both adorable and deeply offended by the existence of cameras.
You tucked the photograph into the envelope.
Then, underneath it, you wrote one final note.
“Proof that she’s an asshole. Only sometime”
You sealed everything before you could change your mind.
Then you mailed it.
By the time Rafe received it, he’d already started waiting for your letters.
He wouldn’t have admitted that.
Not to you.
Not to his cellmate.
Not even to himself, if he’d been asked directly.
But he knew the schedule.
He knew approximately how long the mail took to reach him. He knew which days the guards usually distributed correspondence and which days were more likely to leave him with nothing but junk mail and paperwork.
And on those days, he found himself looking toward the door.
It annoyed him.
Everything annoyed him lately.
The food.
The noise.
The rules.
The lights that never seemed quite right.
The constant movement around him.
The way people stared.
The way the years kept stacking up behind him until thirteen of them had somehow become his new normal.
His mother was still dead.
That fact hadn’t become easier with time.
Neither had the memory of being twenty-two.
Sometimes it came back with an almost painful clarity—the person he’d been before everything split into a before and an after, before thirteen years of his life disappeared behind concrete and steel.
There were days when he wondered if that version of himself even existed anymore.
But the letters didn’t annoy him.
Not really.
Your letters were strange.
You didn’t treat him like a monster.
You didn’t treat him like some tragic victim, either.
You didn’t ask invasive questions about his crime or expect him to explain every ugly part of his past. You didn’t preach at him. You didn’t tell him that everything happened for a reason.
You certainly didn’t tell him that God had some grand plan for his life.
You didn’t even tell him he was a good person.
You just talked.
That was the weird part.
You complained.
You told him about your cat.
You told him about the stupid things that happened at work.
You told him when you’d had a bad day.
Sometimes you wrote about things that were difficult, and sometimes you spent three pages talking about absolutely nothing.
Once, you’d spent nearly half a page complaining about a woman at the grocery store who had stopped in the middle of an aisle and apparently decided that was the perfect place to contemplate her entire existence.
Rafe had laughed when he’d read it.
Actually laughed.
It had caught him so off guard that he’d had to read the paragraph twice.
His cellmate had looked over at him like he’d finally lost his mind.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
His cellmate glanced at the letter in Rafe’s hands.
“You laughing at a letter?”
Rafe folded the page immediately.
“Mind your business.”
A snort came from the other side of the room.
“You got a girlfriend?”
Rafe’s expression hardened.
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
His cellmate raised an eyebrow but, mercifully, didn’t push.
Rafe ignored him.
Instead, he looked down at the photograph you’d sent.
Clementine.
She looked exactly as unpleasant as you’d described.
Somehow, that made the picture better.
He turned it over once in his hands, studying the ridiculous little photograph with an expression he would’ve denied having if anyone had pointed it out.
Then he smiled.
Just slightly.
He hated that.
He hated how easily you’d started slipping into his routine.
He hated that he could recognize your handwriting from across the room now. Hated that he knew the shape of your letters, the way you crossed certain words out when you changed your mind, the little habits that had become familiar without him ever consciously deciding to memorize them.
He hated that when you didn’t write, he noticed.
Most of all, he hated that there was a small, stubborn part of him that looked forward to the mail.
Because looking forward to things in prison was dangerous.
Hope had a way of making the days harder.
It was easier to survive thirteen years when you’d convinced yourself there was nothing waiting for you on the other side of them. Easier when tomorrow was just another day to get through, another date on the calendar, another stretch of time that didn’t require you to want anything.
Rafe had gotten very good at not wanting things.
He’d had to.
Then you started sending letters.
And suddenly, somewhere beyond those walls, there was a woman with a cat who apparently hated his opinions, made homemade cookies, complained about grocery-store etiquette, and still wanted to hear from him.
He didn’t know what to do with that.
It would’ve been easier if you treated him differently.
If you were afraid of him.
If you judged him.
If you wanted something from him.
Any of that would’ve made sense.
Instead, you simply kept writing.
And Rafe had spent thirteen years learning how to live without caring.
You were making that harder.
∘°∘♡∘°∘
Your third letter arrived on a Tuesday.
Rafe knew it was yours before he even saw the handwriting properly. There was something about the envelope that had become familiar to him by then, enough that his attention caught on it almost automatically when the mail was handed over.
He waited until he was back in his cell before opening it.
The paper unfolded in his hands.
At the top, you had written:
“Rafe,”
That was all it said at first.
He frowned, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked down at the page. There was enough empty space beneath his name to make him suspicious.
Then he continued reading.
“I’m mad at you.”
Rafe sat back.
Oh.
Interesting.
He read the next line.
“Not because of anything you said this time.”
That only made him more curious.
“Because you were right about one thing. I don’t think I realized how much I was waiting for your letters until yesterday when there wasn’t one.”
The corner of Rafe’s mouth twitched.
“I checked the mailbox three times.”
He laughed.
Quietly, almost under his breath.
“This is embarrassing.”
He could practically hear your voice when he read it.
Then:
“I think you’re becoming my friend.”
His smile disappeared.
Rafe read the sentence again.
Then again.
Friend.
The word sat strangely in his head.
He hadn’t had one of those in a long time.
Not really.
There were people he knew. People he’d grown up with. People who had visited him. People who occasionally wrote. There were names he recognized and faces he could still remember, even after thirteen years had changed more than he liked to admit.
But a friend?
Somebody who actually knew things about him?
Somebody who asked questions because they genuinely wanted the answers instead of because they were trying to figure out what kind of person he was?
That was different.
Rafe looked back down at the letter.
You continued.
“I don’t know if you’re comfortable with that. If you’re not, you can tell me.”
His thumb rested against the edge of the paper.
Then:
“But I like writing to you.”
Rafe stared at the sentence.
There was another paragraph.
“You’re rude. You’re stubborn. You’re occasionally an asshole. You’re also funny, even though I don’t think you’re trying to be. And you actually listened when I told you something mattered to me, even if you didn’t understand it.”
He swallowed.
“I think that’s worth something.”
For a moment, he didn’t move.
His thumb ran slowly along the edge of the paper, smoothing down a corner that didn’t actually need smoothing.
He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with that.
Nobody had said something like that to him in a long time.
Not without wanting something in return.
Then he reached the final paragraph.
“Anyway, I’m going to stop being sentimental now because I already regret writing this.”
A tiny smile appeared despite himself.
Of course you regretted it.
He could almost picture you sitting somewhere with the letter in front of you, realizing you’d said too much and immediately wishing you could take half of it back.
Then he read the final question.
“Tell me something you miss.”
Rafe stared at it for a long time.
There were a thousand answers.
His mother’s voice.
The ocean.
His old house.
Driving.
Music played too loud.
The feeling of being able to walk somewhere without asking permission.
His bedroom.
His freedom.
His life.
The list kept going.
He could’ve filled the entire page.
Maybe several.
But he couldn’t write all of that.
Not yet.
So he picked one.
He turned the page over and rested his pen against the paper.
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Then he wrote:
“I miss my mother’s cooking.”
He stopped.
The sentence looked far more honest sitting there in his own handwriting than it had sounded in his head.
He kept going.
“Not even anything fancy. She used to make this chicken dish. I don’t remember what she called it. Probably had some stupid French name. I just remember the smell.”
His pen slowed.
“I miss hearing her in the kitchen.”
He stared at the sentence.
There was something uncomfortable about seeing it written down. Something too real about admitting that after thirteen years, what he missed wasn’t necessarily some huge, dramatic memory.
Sometimes it was just a kitchen.
A smell.
His mother’s voice somewhere in the next room.
He looked away for a moment before forcing himself to continue.
“I miss being twenty-two.”
That one was harder.
He sat there with the pen hovering over the paper.
Then he wrote:
“I thought I had forever.”
Rafe looked toward the narrow window.
There wasn’t much to see.
There rarely was.
Just another reminder that the world continued beyond the walls without him.
He lowered his eyes again.
“I think everybody thinks that when they’re young.”
He paused.
Then continued.
“You don’t understand that your life can split in half in one afternoon.”
His jaw tightened.
“One minute you’re one person. Then something happens and you’re somebody else forever.”
He didn’t write about the gun.
He didn’t write about the body.
He didn’t write about the courtroom.
He didn’t need to.
You hadn’t asked him to explain the worst day of his life.
You’d only asked what he missed.
So he gave you the pieces he could.
“I miss not knowing what prison smells like.”
Rafe actually laughed at that one.
It was easier to make a joke out of it.
He added:
“You probably don’t want to hear about that.”
Then, after a moment:
“I miss the ocean.”
That was easier.
He could almost feel it when he wrote the words.
“I miss driving.”
Another.
“I miss being able to decide where I was going.”
His pen stopped.
He looked back at your letter.
I think you’re becoming my friend.
The sentence was still there.
Still strange.
Still sitting somewhere inside his chest where he wasn’t used to feeling anything anymore.
He picked up the pen again.
“I don’t know if I’m good at being somebody’s friend anymore.”
He stared at it.
Something about the word bothered him.
He crossed out anymore.
For a second, he considered leaving it that way.
Instead, he rewrote the sentence.
“I don’t know if I’m good at being somebody’s friend.”
Better.
More honest.
Then:
“But I like your letters.”
Rafe frowned.
Too vulnerable.
His pen hovered over the sentence.
He almost crossed it out.
Almost.
He didn’t.
Instead, he continued.
“So I guess you can keep writing.”
He hesitated.
Then, after a moment:
“And I’ll keep answering.”
That was enough.
He signed his name at the bottom.
Then he looked over the letter one last time.
It felt strange.
Not bad.
Just strange.
He’d spent years making sure he didn’t need much from anybody. He’d learned how to let days pass without expecting anything from them.
And now there was a person on the outside waiting for his letters.
A person who had admitted she checked the mailbox three times.
A person who called him an asshole and then sent him cookies anyway.
A person who had somehow become his friend without either of them deciding when it happened.
Rafe picked up his pen one last time.
He added a final sentence.
“Tell Clementine she owes me a cookie.”
He folded the letter carefully.
For once, when the door closed behind him, he didn’t feel quite so angry.
∘°∘♡∘°∘
You read his answer at midnight.
You were sitting cross-legged on your bed in an old pair of pajamas, the room quiet except for the faint hum of the air conditioner. Clementine was curled against your hip, warm and heavy beneath the blanket, occasionally shifting in her sleep whenever you moved too much.
The letter was open in your lap.
You read the part about his mother twice.
Not because you hadn’t understood it the first time, but because something about the way he’d written it made you slow down. There was no joke attached to it. No sarcastic comment to soften the edges. No attempt to make himself sound tougher than he was.
Just the truth.
You read the part about being twenty-two next.
Then the sentence about how his life had split in half.
You stared at that one for a while.
You didn’t know what had happened that afternoon thirteen years ago. Not really. You knew the version that existed in court records, the version people had repeated to you when they’d explained who you were corresponding with. You knew the charge. You knew the sentence. You knew enough to understand that there were things about Rafe Cameron’s life that couldn’t be condensed into a few paragraphs on a form.
But you didn’t need to know everything.
For the first time, Rafe Cameron stopped being the prisoner they’d assigned you.
He was just Rafe.
Thirty-five years old. Thirteen years into a sentence he’d spent more than a decade learning how to live inside. Still angry about things he couldn’t change. Still stubborn enough to argue with you over things that absolutely did not matter. Still carrying his mother with him, even after all those years.
Still remembering the ocean.
Still missing the stupid, ordinary freedom of getting into a car and driving somewhere just because he felt like it.
And, apparently, still learning how to write to somebody without turning every feeling into a joke or an insult.
You understood that last part more than you wanted to admit.
And you?
You were still you.
Still depressed. Still struggling. Still trying to figure out your relationship with food and with yourself. Still having days when getting through the day felt considerably harder than it should have. Still learning that being unhappy didn’t mean you had to punish yourself for it.
Nothing about you had magically changed just because someone had started writing you letters from a prison.
There hadn’t been some grand transformation.
No sudden healing. No miraculous forgiveness. No moment where everything inside your head suddenly became quiet.
There were still bad days.
There were still mornings when you woke up already exhausted. There were still nights when you couldn’t quite explain why you felt so low. There were still things you didn’t know how to talk about, even on paper.
But now, once a week, there was a letter.
Sometimes it was two pages.
Sometimes it was five.
Sometimes it was barely a page at all, because Rafe had apparently decided that spending half a page complaining about prison food counted as meaningful correspondence.
You’d started looking forward to those letters anyway.
It was such a small thing that you almost felt ridiculous admitting how much it mattered.
You would hear the mail come in and find yourself wondering if there would be an envelope with his handwriting on it. You’d tell yourself you didn’t care either way, and then you’d notice yourself checking again ten minutes later.
Sometimes the letters were important.
Sometimes they weren’t.
You wrote about Clementine, who had apparently become a recurring character in his life despite having never met him. Rafe had developed very strong opinions about her simply based on the stories you told him, most of which seemed to consist of her sleeping wherever she pleased and looking at you like you were personally responsible for every inconvenience in her life.
He complained about prison food.
A lot.
You told him about your terrible coworkers, including the one who somehow managed to make every shift feel twice as long just by being there. Rafe told you about the books he’d been reading, occasionally getting so invested in explaining one that you’d forget for a moment where the letter had come from.
You told him when you’d had a bad week.
He never told you that he understood.
You appreciated that.
Instead, he started asking a simple question.
You doing okay?
Sometimes you lied.
Sometimes you wrote back that you were fine because explaining why you weren’t felt like too much work.
Eventually, though, you started telling him when the answer was no.
And Rafe stopped trying to fix it.
He didn’t send you paragraphs about how everything would be okay. He didn’t pretend he had some perfect answer. He didn’t tell you that you needed to look on the bright side or that other people had it worse.
He just wrote back.
Sometimes it was only a few lines.
Sometimes it was something as simple as, Bad day, huh? I’m here.
And somehow, that was better.
Because neither of you needed to be fixed.
Maybe that was the thing you’d both been getting wrong.
You weren’t a project for him, and he wasn’t a project for you. Neither of you could undo what had happened before the letters started. You couldn’t reach through the paper and change thirteen years of his life, and he couldn’t reach through it and erase the difficult parts of yours.
All you could do was keep writing.
Keep answering.
Keep showing up.
Two people sitting on opposite sides of a system neither of you completely understood, passing small pieces of your lives back and forth on paper.
A story about a cat.
A complaint about prison food.
A terrible day at work.
A book.
A memory.
A question.
A little bit of honesty.
And, eventually, a little bit of trust.
You looked down at the letter again, your thumb resting against the edge of the paper.
Clementine shifted beside you and tucked herself closer to your side.
You smiled faintly.
Maybe that was enough for tonight.
Not healing.
Not fixing.
Just being noticed.
Just knowing that somewhere, on the other side of all those locked doors and rules and miles, somebody knew you were still there.
And for now, that was enough.
∘°∘♡∘°∘
Four months into writing to Rafe, you made a decision that felt considerably more terrifying than mailing a photograph of your cat to a convicted prisoner.
You agreed to visit him.
The church coordinator had brought it up first.
Not in a pushy way. She hadn’t tried to convince you or make it sound like some obligation you’d taken on when you joined the correspondence program. She’d simply mentioned it one afternoon in that careful, almost conversational tone people used when they knew they were asking something that might be difficult.
“He asked if you’d ever consider an in-person visit.”
You’d stared at her.
Then you’d spent approximately three days pretending you hadn’t heard her.
Because you’d never met Rafe.
Not really.
You knew his handwriting better than his face. You knew he hated the prison coffee, that he missed his mother’s cooking, and that he’d somehow developed a personal vendetta against Clementine despite having never actually met her.
You knew he swore entirely too much.
You knew he had a habit of answering serious questions with jokes and jokes with even more jokes. You knew he’d been incarcerated for thirteen years, and you knew enough about his past to understand that there were parts of his life he still struggled to talk about.
You knew him through ink.
Through envelopes.
Through the pieces of himself he’d decided were safe enough to put onto paper.
But sitting across from him?
That felt different.
That made everything real.
Still, you agreed.
And now you were sitting in the visitation room with your hands folded tightly in your lap, trying very hard not to look as nervous as you felt.
The room was exactly as unpleasant as you’d imagined.
Too bright. Too cold. Too many rules posted in places where everyone was expected to read them. Plastic tables. Hard chairs. The faint, constant noise of people talking around you.
There were families scattered throughout the room, some speaking quietly, others leaning across their tables as though trying to close the distance between themselves and the person sitting opposite them.
You kept looking toward the door.
You told yourself you weren’t waiting impatiently.
You were just looking.
There was a difference.
Then the door opened.
Your heart jumped.
Rafe walked in.
You knew immediately that it was him.
Not because you’d seen photographs.
You hadn’t.
But because you’d spent four months learning the shape of his personality through ink. You knew the cadence of his jokes, the way he wrote when he was annoyed, the way his handwriting seemed to get messier whenever he had something difficult to say.
None of that prepared you for the actual person.
He was taller than you’d pictured.
Broader, too.
There was something imposing about him even in prison clothes, something rough around the edges that the letters hadn’t quite captured. His expression was guarded as he stepped into the room, his eyes moving over the tables and faces before he finally looked up.
Then he saw you.
He stopped.
For half a second, neither of you moved.
You simply stared at each other.
Then his mouth tilted into a crooked smile.
“Well, fuck.”
Your eyebrows lifted.
He started walking toward you.
“You’re real.”
You blinked.
“Last time I checked.”
He laughed.
It was a low, surprised sound, and hearing it in person was strange. Familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.
Then his eyes moved over you again.
“Pretty little birdy.”
Your smile vanished.
“I’m sorry?”
He stopped.
You stared at him.
He stared back.
Your brow furrowed.
“Did you just call me a bird?”
Rafe’s eyebrows shot up.
“No.”
“You literally did.”
“I said pretty little birdy.”
“That’s still a bird.”
For a second, he looked genuinely confused.
Then he rubbed his jaw.
“I meant it affectionate.”
You crossed your arms.
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not a bird.”
“I know you’re not a fucking bird.”
“Then why did you call me one?”
He stared at you like he was trying to figure out how the conversation had somehow gotten away from him.
Then he sighed.
“Jesus Christ.”
Your eyebrows furrowed again.
He noticed.
“You do that every time I swear.”
“Because you swear every thirty seconds.”
“I do not.”
“You just did.”
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Then pointed at you.
“See? That’s why I like you.”
You blinked.
He sat down across from you.
“And I’m not calling you a bird in some misogynistic way,” he added. “I’m not saying you’re delicate or helpless or whatever the fuck. I mean it like—”
He gestured vaguely, clearly struggling to explain something that had sounded much simpler in his head.
“Like you’re… small.”
Your eyes narrowed.
“That isn’t helping.”
“Pretty.”
You blinked.
“What?”
“I mean you’re pretty.”
Your face warmed.
Rafe seemed to realize what he’d said at exactly the same time you did.
He leaned back in his chair.
“That’s what I meant.”
You looked down at your hands.
“Oh.”
“Pretty little birdy,” he repeated, quieter this time. “Affectionate. That’s all.”
You hesitated.
Then sighed.
“Fine.”
His grin returned immediately.
“Good.”
“But I still don’t like it.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
“I absolutely will not.”
“We’ll see.”
You rolled your eyes.
He laughed.
And somehow, just like that, the awkwardness broke.
For the first few minutes, you talked about absolutely nothing.
The weather.
The prison food.
Clementine.
You told him she’d knocked over another cup of coffee.
“She’s got something against coffee,” you said.
Rafe shook his head.
“She’s got something against you having joy.”
You frowned.
“Why are you always insulting my cat?”
“Because she’s not here to defend herself.”
“She’s a sweet girl.”
“She’s a criminal.”
You stared at him.
“You’re literally in prison.”
There was a beat of silence.
Rafe looked at you.
Then he laughed so hard he had to turn his head away.
“Okay,” he said, still laughing. “That was good.”
You smiled.
“I’ve been saving that one.”
“I can tell.”
The conversation became easier after that.
He asked about your work, and you complained about your boss. He listened with the same attention he’d given your letters, occasionally making some dry comment that made you laugh despite yourself.
He asked whether you’d made more Boy Bait.
You told him yes.
He nodded approvingly.
“Good.”
You looked at him.
“You sound like you’ve been waiting.”
“I have.”
Your eyebrows rose.
“You could’ve just said you missed my letters.”
“I did not say that.”
“You implied it.”
“I did no such thing.”
“You absolutely did.”
He shook his head.
“You talk too much.”
“You’ve said that before.”
“Because it’s still true.”
You smiled.
“You like it.”
He looked at you for a second.
Then shrugged.
“Maybe.”
You weren’t sure what to do with that.
So you looked down at your hands.
For a little while, neither of you spoke.
There was a comfortable silence between you.
Not awkward.
Not empty.
Just quiet.
It was strange how quickly that had happened. Four months of letters had somehow made sitting across from a stranger feel less like meeting a stranger and more like finally putting a voice and a face to someone you’d already gotten to know.
Eventually, Rafe leaned forward.
“So.”
You looked up.
“So?”
“You gonna tell me what you actually meant in those letters?”
Your brow furrowed.
“About what?”
“Your depression.”
You went still.
“And the bulimia.”
Your fingers tightened together.
Rafe noticed immediately.
His expression changed.
Not dramatically. Just enough.
“I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable.”
“I know.”
“You said you wanted me to understand.”
“I did.”
“So explain it.”
You took a slow breath.
You weren’t sure how to explain something that had taken you years to understand yourself. There wasn’t one neat definition for it, no single sentence that could make another person understand what it was like from inside your own head.
Still, you tried.
“Depression isn’t just being sad,” you began.
Rafe nodded.
You continued.
“It’s like… everything becomes harder. Getting out of bed. Taking a shower. Answering messages. Eating. Sleeping. Sometimes things that used to make me happy just don’t.”
He didn’t interrupt.
That was the first thing you noticed.
He simply listened.
“It isn’t always crying, either,” you said. “Sometimes I don’t feel anything. I can be surrounded by people and feel completely disconnected from them.”
Rafe’s expression had gone serious.
You looked down.
“And bulimia is… complicated.”
“Okay.”
“It’s not just eating too much.”
“I know.”
You gave him a look.
He immediately raised his hands.
“I’m listening.”
You continued.
“It’s tied to everything else. Shame. Anxiety. Feeling like I need control. Sometimes I’ll eat because I’m overwhelmed or upset, and then I feel horrible about it. And then I try to compensate for it.”
You didn’t give details.
You didn’t need to.
Rafe seemed to understand enough.
“It’s not a choice where I wake up and decide to have an eating disorder.”
“I get that.”
You looked at him.
“You didn’t before.”
His face tightened.
“No.”
“You told me to just eat if I was hungry.”
“I was an asshole.”
You almost smiled.
“Yes.”
“Still am, probably.”
“Definitely.”
He nodded once.
“Fair.”
You looked down at your hands again.
“I don’t want you to fix it.”
“I’m not gonna.”
“I just want you to understand that when I’m having a bad day, telling me to just eat or stop being sad doesn’t help.”
Rafe was quiet.
He looked down at the table, his fingers tapping once against the surface before going still.
Then he rubbed the back of his neck.
“I’m sorry.”
You blinked.
“What?”
“I’m sorry.”
His voice was quieter now.
“For what I said in that first letter.”
You stared at him.
He looked uncomfortable.
Not defensive.
Not angry.
Just guilty.
“I didn’t understand it,” he admitted. “I thought I did. I didn’t.”
You swallowed.
“It’s okay.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
You didn’t answer.
He rubbed the back of his neck again.
“I was a dick.”
“You were.”
He gave you a look.
You shrugged.
“You were.”
“Yeah.”
A tiny smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“Still sorry.”
You nodded.
“Thank you.”
He leaned back.
For a moment, neither of you spoke.
Then, apparently deciding that the conversation had become far too sincere for his liking, Rafe suddenly flexed his arm.
You stared at him.
“What are you doing?”
He flexed again.
“Nothing.”
“You’re literally flexing.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You are.”
He glanced down at his own arm as though he’d only just noticed what it was doing.
“Huh.”
You squinted at him.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you flexing?”
“I’m not.”
“You’ve done it three times.”
He shrugged.
“Maybe I’ve been working out.”
You stared at him.
“Okay?”
“Just saying.”
“Congratulations?”
His mouth twitched.
“You think they’re bigger?”
You blinked.
“Are you seriously asking me to evaluate your muscles right now?”
“No.”
“Because it really sounds like you are.”
“I’m not.”
“You absolutely are.”
He flexed again.
You covered your face with one hand.
“Oh my God.”
He laughed.
“What?”
“You are acting like a high school boy.”
“Maybe I just wanted you to notice.”
You lowered your hand.
“Notice what?”
He flexed his arm again.
You stared at him for a long second.
Then shook your head.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Didn’t say I wasn’t.”
“You were being all serious five minutes ago.”
“People can be serious and have muscles.”
“Apparently.”
He grinned.
You couldn’t help laughing.
And that was how the first visit went.
Not dramatic.
Not life-changing.
Just two people talking.
You told him about Clementine. He told you about the prison’s terrible coffee. You explained something he’d misunderstood, and he apologized. Then, because apparently he couldn’t tolerate sincerity for more than five consecutive minutes, he started flexing his arms like an obnoxious teenage boy.
It was oddly comforting.
You left the visitation room with a strange feeling in your chest.
Not happiness exactly.
Something softer.
You hadn’t forgotten the things you struggled with.
You hadn’t magically become okay.
Rafe hadn’t become a different person, either.
He was still rough around the edges. Still foul-mouthed. Still stubborn. Still incarcerated for a crime he insisted had been justified.
But now he had a face.
A voice.
A laugh.
A ridiculous habit of flexing whenever he didn’t know what to do with himself.
And when you looked back before leaving, he was still watching you.
hiiya! can u do smth with older!rafe and shy!angel!reader? she's just so quiet and doesn't wanna spend his money cause she feels bad about it, but she's so clingy and follows him anywhere. idk u can do wtv comes to ur mind!☆☆☆
omigosh this is so adorable!!
☆☆☆ Older!Rafe x Shy!Angel!reader ☆☆☆
warnings: nada! Just fluff.
Rafe started noticing it in the third month of you guys being together. You’d been eyeing a dress while you were browsing at a boutique. It wasn’t designer. It wasn’t necessarily expensive. Your fingers brushed over one of the sleeves before you quietly put it back where you found it. He didn’t think much of it, until he noticed you did it with everything. Shoes, perfume, books, makeup, candles. Anything that you didn’t necessarily need at the moment.
You’d admire it, smile to yourself, then walk away
“Baby.”
You looked up.
“Hm?”
“You want that?”
Your eyes widened.
“Oh—no.”
“You were just looking at it.”
“I was.”
“…So you want it.”
You immediately shook your head.
“No, no. It’s okay.”
Rafe folded his arms.
“Those aren’t the same answer.”
You looked down at your shoes.
“I just liked looking.”
—
It happened again.
And again.
And again.
Eventually, he figured out the pattern. It wasn’t that you didn’t like nice things, you loved them.
You just couldn’t make yourself spend his money.
One night he finally asked. You were curled against his side on the couch, both of your legs thrown over his lap while he answered emails.
His free hand rubbed lazy circles into your calf.
“You ever gonna tell me why?”
You blinked.
“Why what?”
“You won’t let me buy you anything.”
“I do.”
“You let me buy groceries.”
“…”
“You let me buy dinner.”
“…”
“You let me pay the electric bills.”
“…”
“But if I try buying you earrings, suddenly it’s World War Three.”
Your cheeks flushed.
“I just…”
He waited.
You fiddled with one of his hoodie strings.
“It feels mean, like I’m taking your money.”
Rafe actually laughed.
“Mean?”
“Yeah.”
“Baby.”
“You work really hard.”
“I do.”
“And it’s your money.”
“It is.”
“So…”
You shrugged helplessly.
“I don’t wanna take advantage.”
He stared at you for a full five seconds.
Then gently grabbed your chin.
“You know what I bought today?”
You blinked.
“What?”
“A fucking boat.”
Your eyes got huge.
“…A boat?”
“Yep.”
“…”
“Didn’t think twice.”
“…”
“But my girlfriend feels guilty over a thirty-dollar sweater.”
You looked horrified.
“It wasn’t thirty.”
“Baby.”
“It was twenty-four.”
He couldn’t help it.
He laughed so hard he had to lean back on the couch.
“No.”
You frowned.
“No?”
“No more of that.”
“I wasn’t—”
“If I can buy a damn boat, I can buy you socks.”
“But—”
“No.”
“But I don’t—”
“No.”
“I—”
“No.”
“…”
“You done?”
“…Maybe.”
After that, he developed a habit.
He never asked anymore.
He’d simply come home.
“Got something.”
Your eyes would immediately narrow.
“…What did you do?”
He’d hand you a tiny shopping bag.
Inside?
Hair clips you’d looked at two weeks ago.
A workout you’d quietly admired online.
The Dior lip balm you’d picked up and put back at Sephora.
The stuffed bunny you’d hugged for exactly four seconds before returning it to the shelf.
“You remembered?”
His heart melted every damn time.
“’ Course I remembered. I’m your man.”
“But Rafe…”
“What?”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I know.”
“You really didn’t.”
“I know.”
“I would’ve been okay.”
“I know.”
“So why?”
He’d shrug.
“’Cause your face lights up.”
The funny thing was…
You never asked for anything.
Ever.
If he said,
“What do you want for your birthday?”
You’d answer,
“You.”
“What else?”
“…Nothing.”
“Baby.”
“I mean it.”
“What about jewelry?”
“I have jewelry.”
“Bags?”
“I have one.”
“Vacation?”
“As long as you’re there.”
“Car?”
“I like yours.”
“You don’t even drive mine.”
“I like being a passenger princess.”
Sometimes he genuinely wondered if you’d follow him anywhere.
Turns out…
You would.
He’d walk into his office.
Thirty seconds later…
Tiny knock.
“Come in.”
The door would crack open.
“There you are.”
You smiled sheepishly.
“I was looking for you.”
“You lost me?”
“You walk fast…”
He started expecting it.
Kitchen.
There you were.
Garage.
There you were.
Home gym.
Library.
Curled into the armchair with a book while he worked.
Even meetings.
His assistant eventually stopped questioning it.
“Mr. Cameron?”
“Yeah?”
“We’ve got investors here.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“…Your girlfriend is asleep.”
He looked over.
Sure enough.
You were curled on the leather couch in the corner of his office.
Head resting against the armrests fast asleep.
He smiled.
“Don’t wake her.”
“The meeting?”
“They can work around it.”
The investors walked in.
Saw the sleeping girl. Looked confused. But Nobody said a word.
Because the terrifying businessman they’d all heard about…
Was quietly walking over with a blanket.
Covering you. Tuck your feet in. Brushing your hair away from your face. Then kissing your forehead before returning to business as if nothing had happened. His assistant nearly passed out.
“You spoil her.”
His older business partner said it one afternoon. Rafe didn’t even look up from his paperwork.
“I do.”
“Doesn’t that worry you?”
“No.”
“What if she gets used to it?”
He actually smiled.
“You don’t know her.”
Because if you wanted coffee…
You’d still ask,
“Do you mind if I make some?”
“Baby, it’s your kitchen too.”
If you wanted strawberries…
“Can I have some?”
“Sweetheart…you live here.”
If you accidentally used the last of something…
“I’m sorry.”
You looked so guilty every single time that he almost laughed.
One morning he found you staring at his closet.
“What’re you doing?”
You jumped.
“Oh!”
“…”
“I borrowed your hoodie yesterday.”
“…Yeah?”
“I wanted to wash it.”
“…Okay.”
“But then…”
You looked genuinely distressed.
“I realized your laundry detergent is expensive.”
He blinked.
“…Baby.”
“So I used mine instead.”
“You bought detergent.”
“…It was on sale.”
He sighed dramatically.
“Come here.”
You immediately walked over. No hesitation. Like gravity.
You always did.
It didn’t matter where he was.
If he opened his arms…
You came. Without thinking. Without asking why. You just fit against him naturally. Your cheek pressed against his chest. Hands wrapping around his waist.
Tiny sigh.
Home.
“You know,” he murmured into your hair.
“What?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever had someone love me this much.”
You looked up.
“I love you a lot.”
“I know.”
“I just don’t wanna be a burden.”
He frowned immediately.
“You could never be.”
“But—”
“No.”
He tipped your chin upward.
“Listen to me.”
You nodded.
“If buying you a sweater makes my day better…”
“…”
“If you following me around the house makes it feel like home…”
“…”
“If you stealing my hoodies means I get to see you drowning in sleeves…”
Your tiny smile appeared.
“…”
“Then who’s really getting spoiled here?”
You blinked.
“I think I am.”
He shook his head.
“I get a girl who smiles like sunshine every time I hand her a stupid little gift.”
“…”
“I get someone who reaches for my hand without thinking.”
“…”
“I get someone who’d rather sit in my office for six hours than spend a day anywhere else.”
Your face turned pink.
“I like being with you.”
“I know.”
“I don’t even care what we’re doing.”
“I know.”
“You just make everywhere feel…”
You searched for the word.
“…Safe.”
For a man who’d spent years believing love had to be loud, dramatic, and constantly tested, that single word settled somewhere deep in his chest.
Safe.
He wrapped both arms around you, kissing the top of your head.
