Everybody Knows Something That I Don't
Summary: Being in love with Rafe Cameron wasn't an original experience. Him being in love with you? That definitely is. How many ways are there for someone so in love with you to fuck up? Ask him.
Pairing: College!Rafe Cameron x Reader
Trope: Best Friends Brother to Friends to Something to Enemies to ???
Word Count: 5.7k
AN: Look at me being productive.... sorry?????
Previous Part Masterlist My Masterlist
Having your heart broken by Rafe Cameron isn’t exactly a new experience for anyone on campus. You’ve seen it countless times, girls fawning over him and expecting that they are somehow going to be different than all of the others. Each one ends just the same, in them wanting more and him still not looking for anything serious. Queue the next week of people whispering, wondering if he is really just that afraid of commitment or if people are really just delusional enough that they are somehow going to be the one to break the cycle.
Never in your life did you ever think you were going to be part of that statistic.
You knew better.
He was your best friend’s brother. You had a front row seat to the heartbreak that seemed to follow him around. You had spent nearly every party you had ever attended telling girls when they questioned you about Rafe’s availability that it was their funeral if they wanted to pursue that beast.
Rafe would tell them the same thing. He wasn’t looking for anything serious. That he didn’t date. Not just the girls in front of him, but anyone. College was for having fun, and he would worry about the rest of it later. Right now, his focus was on getting to the NFL. Surviving another semester. Hanging out with his friends before he would inevitably get swept away in the media frenzy of the world.
Every single one of them would try anyway. Thinking that someway, somehow, there was someone who was going to be able to turn his head so far that he would forget about all of that. Time after time, they would find out that there was nobody capable of getting his attention away from all of it.
Queue the tears. The whispers. The pity looks.
You had thought they were a bit extreme when they were happening to everyone else, choosing to tell people to shut up or grow up whenever they tried to include you as the latest girl walked through campus.
As you walk back to your dorm, you realize that being on the receiving end is even worse than you imagined.
None of it helps the tears burning in your eyes or the lump in your throat as you try to keep your eyes on the sidewalk below you. Your ignorance doesn't deter everyone around you, every single set of eyes locking on you as if there is a giant sign floating behind you in flashing lights that read: ‘This idiot got their heart broken by Rafe Cameron. Your turn!’.
You want to call Sarah.
Your fingers are practically itching for it, your hand subconsciously reaching for your phone in your back pocket multiple times as you approach your building. You know that she would glare at everyone around you, telling them to mind their own business or get a hobby. She would try to distract you with something funny to try to keep you from humiliating yourself any further in public because she always knew the right thing to do.
Except you can’t.
You can’t because then she will know that not only had you completely ignored the millions of warnings you had gotten in your lifetime, you had taken it a step further. You didn’t just fall into the Rafe Cameron trap, but you are pretty sure you dragged him in with you.
It was her brother who had single-handedly managed to shatter your heart and you weren’t going to make her choose whose to repair.
You’re 99.9% sure that you are so stupidly in love with her brother that you may never get out of it. And in doing that, you have put her in such an impossible situation, you could throw up at the thought of her feeling like she would have to choose.
So, you can’t call her. Somehow, you are going to push this down and you are going to get through it because you don’t have a choice.
You have never been more thankful that you turned down her and John B’s offer to move into the couple’s housing across the street. The two of you had roomed together the first two years, but when they had wanted to move in together, there wasn’t even a hesitation in asking you to come along.
You, however, had declined because you had seen John B naked too many times in your life. The idea of living with him and running the risk of seeing another pale ass in your bathroom wasn’t as appealing when Kie had just decided to split up with her roommate from hell. The campus was small enough that it practically felt like you guys were always together anyways, so it didn’t really change anything.
Except this.
This situation is the first time you have ever been grateful that you had declined. While Kie and you were close, the girl knew when to push and when to leave situations alone for you to figure out on your own time. She knew something was up, but she was going to take whatever answer you gave her until you were ready to talk about it.
Sarah couldn’t let you suffer alone. She had never been capable of it because you are her best friend. She wants to help you through any and everything.
You know that she knows.
She knows that you know that she knows.
Still, neither one of you is ready to confirm it before the other.
You twist the key in your front door, the hallways of the upperclassmen dorm thankfully less full of pitied stares than the sidewalk you had stepped in from. Usually at this time of day, Kie would be in the kitchen packing her food for her lunch break with JJ half sprawled across the counter trying to distract her.
That had ended with the first day you spent locked in your room, your roommate knowing that if there is anybody nosy enough to try to bust in your locked door, it would be her boisterous boyfriend. As evidenced this morning, it had been confirmed that he was willing to do anything to make sure that you were at least alive.
Even at the risk of you accidentally kicking him in the worst area possible.
She’s not in at all, a sticky note pressed against the mirror on your wall above the area where you usually drop your bag telling you that she got called in early and that she is making spaghetti for dinner if you are interested.
You’re not sure why, but the way her handwriting curls on the page makes the lump in your throat that much worse.
Toeing your shoes off, you drop your bag on the ground and bite the inside of your lip to keep the tears burning the corners of your eyes from falling. You’ve spent so much of the last few days crying that you’re not sure how you haven’t died from dehydration yet.
Crying is the last thing you want to do, so you won’t.
You’re done crying.
“Hey.”
For the second time today, you want the ground to open up and swallow you whole as your blonde best friend hops up from the barstool furthest away from the front door like she has been sitting there waiting for you.
“Listen, I know that this morning was a little crazy, but I know something is going on with you and I just want-”
She starts rambling instantly, tucking the front pieces of her hair behind her ears as if she is giving you a speech she has been rehearsing for hours. You stand in front of her frozen, the saddest in your chest roaring back to life as you watch her try to explain why she can't just let you deal with this alone.
It’s the same reason Kie’s note left a knot in your throat. The reason why hearing your best friend telling you that no matter what story you try to spin, she knows you is making it physically impossible to stop your lip from wobbling and the tears in your eyes to slip out.
You haven’t kept anything from them. Ever.
Not a bad grade. Not a horrible game of spin the bottle.
Not a boy.
The moment her eyes meet yours, the words die in her throat and she silently stares at you open-mouthed as she takes in the devastation taking over your face. In a flash, her shoulders drop and she is moving to you without hesitation.
“Oh, honey.”
An ugly sob rips out of your throat the second her arms wrap around you, tucking your head into her shoulder as you feel the tightness in your chest finally winning.
You know she knows why you are crying in the middle of your living room. There’s not a doubt in your mind that she has pieced together the overlap of you cutting your life off from the outside world and the surprise announcement that had been plastered all over the news.
The knowing look on her face never comes. The ‘I told you so’ that you had been so sure was coming doesn’t even cross her mind. She just pulls you over to the couch and sits down with you while you cry, an explanation dying in your throat every time you attempt to push it out.
The second a word tumbles out of your throat resembling an apology, her head is shaking almost immediately. She doesn’t want an apology. There’s no reason for one.
He’s her brother.
But somehow, the thought never crossed your mind that being her best friend would always mean just as much.
Always her best friend.
“On a scale of like a solid year to life,” Kie asks from her spot by the front door, standing frozen as she sees you with tear tracks on your face and Sarah sitting next to you. The front door is still open, lanyard dangling from the key in the lock because of all the things she was expecting after coming home from her shift, it definitely wasn’t this. “How much prison time am I looking at?”
You press your hand to your face, trying to hide from the question. You want to laugh, but after the time you have spent crying and explaining the situation to the girl next to you, you’re not entirely sure that you even know how to do that anymore.
Sarah puts her arm across the back of the couch, a silent invitation for Kie to join the two of you while offering her a neutral look.
“There was an L word involved.”
Kie’s bag drops to the floor with a thud, followed by a string of curses that drags your hand away from your face. She is trying to pull her key out of the handle, but it seems to be giving her issues.
“JJ, go home,” she calls, giving the key one final tug and flinging her upper body out into the hallway to block off the hallway.
You can hear him grumble something back, a tuft of blonde hair peeking around the door before she is shoving him out into the hallway and letting the front door close behind them. Sarah just dramatically rolls her eyes at you in response to their raised bickering that you can’t quite make out through the door and you feel the corner of your mouth tug up just the slightest.
The door opens as quickly as it was shut, Kie slipping in and locking it before you can blink. There’s a thud of a somewhat knock before you hear JJ shout something about not getting a proper goodbye.
“Bye, love you!” Kie leans against the wood of the door, giving a dramatic kiss to the tips of her fingers and tapping it against the door. “Let me know when you get home.”
She tosses her keys on the counter, making her way across the room in a flash. The couch dips with her arrival, her dropping into the open seat as she looks between the two of you with expectant eyes.
“He was a dick about it?”
“He,” Sarah clarifies, turning her attention back to Kie and letting her arm stay on the couch behind her. “Is the one who said it.”
You bury your face into your knees at the reminder, the ache in your chest is not as strong as it was at the beginning of this conversation, but it’s definitely not gone.
“Oh, shit.” Her fingers brush against your shoulder, squeezing lightly. “Sorry, that probably doesn’t help. I just- He’s Rafe.”
“I know,” You groan as her hand leaves your shoulder.
“Wait, Sofia-”
“I know.”
You don’t need the reminder of how shitty this situation has turned out to be. You are currently in the eye of the hurricane, and as much as you may wish it was over, you still have a storm waiting in front of you.
“And you-”
You lift your head just as Sarah is dramatically waving her hand in front of her throat, trying to silence the question spilling out of Kie’s mouth before it has a chance to land, but it is far too late. One look at your face, and her mouth snaps shut, the same pitying look Sarah had given you crossing her face in a flash before disappearing.
“Oh.”
It’s the only word she can seem to muster as you bury your face back in your knees, shame burning across your face as you refuse to let the tears climbing up your throat come out again. Now two people know the worst secret you’ve ever kept- the only secret. It should make you feel liberated. To finally be able to share the stupid thing that has been plaguing you with your closest friends.
But it’s Rafe.
Who at one time you are sure they could have seen coming. The comments about how different he is with you had been thrown around for years. Sarah may have simply refused to believe that you would fall for the charm of her brother, but with one look, you know that Kie had known it was coming.
But he’s not your-
He’s not that guy anymore.
He’s the same Rafe he has always been.
Except he’s Sofia’s now.
It makes you the other woman. Someone you swore you would never be. Even if you won’t act on it, even if you refuse to act on it, it doesn’t change the feeling in your chest at the mention of his name.
It doesn’t make you feel any better to have people know that.
That you can’t go anywhere. You can’t do anything without remembering his knocking into the lamp in your living room or snatching a dandelion out of the grass and throwing it at you when you called him an idiot.
You are so utterly in love with Rafe Cameron it actually hurts. It’s a knife settled deeply in your chest that you can’t dislodge no matter how hard you try.
And while you love him, he isn’t yours to love. He won’t be. You are in love with someone who asked someone else to marry him. He’s flashing her ring to the media, and you are crying in your dorm room to your friends who are finding out that you are in love with someone else’s fiance.
Even if you know that they don’t see you any differently. No matter how much Sarah swore it wasn’t your fault because you didn’t know, it doesn’t change how you feel about it.
“So, what’s the plan?”
You look up to find Kie looking at you expectantly while Sarah is just offering you a small smile and sending your friend a look just as strange as the one you are giving her.
“Plan?”
“You love him, right?” She asks like it’s simple. As if answering that question out loud isn’t the thing you’ve been dreading since you realized that you do.
Of course you do. You’re not sure that there was a time that you didn’t. Even as kids, you think it has always been there, your heart always finding some reason to lead you right to him.
Every scraped knee. The aftermath of all the busted knuckles he seemed to acquire before his dad made him straighten up and get serious about going to college.
Your blurry eyes look away from her to the blonde girl next to her, the lump in your throat feeling like it is somehow going to swallow you whole. The very person you had been so worried about disappointing had been sitting with you for the entire day with the same look on her face as she has right now, a patient smile provided just for you.
The second you let her know what was going on, you realized you had been so stupid to worry about it so much. The moment everything came tumbling out of your mouth, she made her peace with it without even a hint of a judgmental look. She wasn’t mad. She wasn’t hurt. She didn’t laugh in your face and say it’s your own fault for not listening.
She was every bit of the girl you were so scared of upsetting.
You’re best friend who loves you no matter what.
Who is on your side even when you aren’t on your own.
“Yeah.”
It’s a whisper of a breath that escapes around the tightness in your throat, an apology in its own way if she can tell the look in your eyes. You never meant for this to happen, you know that she knows that, but it doesn’t make it go away.
You’ve tried.
She gets it. The way her nose scrunches as she takes in your confession, you feel the panic that this is it. The moment where she decides this is all too much for her to deal with. You’ve created such a mess for yourself and she won’t be there to pull you out.
Except, she just gives you a barely there shake of her head and reaches out to squeeze your hand. She’s told you a thousand times today to not apologize because there isn’t a need for one, and this is the thousandth and one.
Not telling her had been so stupid. If grace had a name, it would be Sarah Cameron. She extended it to the entire world around her, day in and day out. She smiled at people who cut her off in traffic and held doors for people who rolled their eyes at her with John B on her arm.
“Okay,” Kie breaks up your train of thought. When you look back at her, she looks like she is trying to get used to the taste of you really being in love with Rafe in her mouth before she continues, tongue pressed to the back of her teeth like she is trying to solve a problem with an answer so obvious she is somehow missing it. “So we knock him over the head and make him see some damn sense.”
You blink.
A plan.
She’s devising a plan- maybe not the best one but still a plan- as if you are somehow going to get Rafe to open his eyes and be in love with you. The idea is so ridiculous that you almost shake your head right off your own shoulders.
“Kie, there is no plan,” You inform her simply. “He’s-”
“Not married yet.”
The difference isn’t anything big to you. Whether he’s married or not, he made a choice and it wasn’t you. He chose Sofia. He wants to be with her. You had seen the ring. You have seen the photos.
He had told you he loved you in his living room, no witnesses or prying eyes in sight. He had kissed you without the slightest camera flash in the safety of his own home. He never meant anything he said because there was nobody there to hold him accountable for it besides you.
He had publicly given a girl you had spoken three words to in the decade you’ve known him the very ring you had watched wither away on his mother’s finger. He had kissed her in front of the eyes of thousands, and that in itself had been the difference that stung the most.
You looked like an idiot pining after a taken man. He had chosen to love her publicly, but you got a whispered confession right before he did so. He was proud to be with her. He wanted everyone to know it.
And now, everyone with eyes could see that he didn’t feel the same way about you.
“That doesn’t matter,” Your voice is quiet, but final.
Kie scoffs, shaking her head as if you’ve got everything wrong. Like you are somehow missing something in the days you have been trying to find any footing in this.
“You expect me to believe,” she turns fully to you, Sarah’s hand falling from its spot in yours to give your friend the space to talk. “That I have been suffering through all these years of the ‘will they, won’t they’ game with you two for him to end up with some girl he’s never even brought around? He told you he loves you-”
“He proposed to her,” You interject. “The very next day.”
“JJ has proposed to a street lamp after one too many shots,” Kie retorts. “Boys don’t always know-”
“He’s not JJ,” You breathe out, stomping out any reasoning she thinks is going to land with you. “This is Rafe. He doesn’t-”
“Make decisions without thinking them through first?” Kie offers, filling in the sentence for you as if you don’t know that it’s wrong. “Act impulsively? Screw it up first and worry about fixing it later?”
Rafe and JJ have always been two sides of the same coin. They butt heads more than anyone in your friend group because of how similar they are. In a world without you, the two of them wouldn’t get along in any situation. They see things too similarly. They react in explosive ways that seem to burn everyone around them. In a different world, you could see them both screwing each other over simply because the other was too afraid of how similar they were.
In this one, they had you.
They didn’t have to be best friends, you had learned that over the years not all of your friends would get along. However, they knew that you wouldn’t choose. That if it came down to it, you wouldn’t pick to be friends with one of them over the other. If they wanted to be around you, they had to be around each other.
“He made his choice.”
It wasn’t me goes unsaid.
She gives you a look that tells you she doesn’t believe you. That the idea that Rafe would choose to be with anyone who wasn’t you is so ridiculous that she can’t even spend a second thinking about it.
“You don’t accidentally propose to someone,” You insist, trying to make her see the same fate that you have accepted.
She tilts her head, eyes roaming over yours with a question in them. You aren’t missing anything. There’s no more information you need to know that you are the only loser in this situation. There isn’t a happy ending for you, and yet she is giving you a look like you are blindly following a lead and she is seeing a neon sign pointing in the other direction.
“Maybe you don’t,” She concedes, a slight nod as if she finds the statement obvious. “But- and hear me out on this- what if he does?”
“Kiara-”
“No,” She shuffles to sit up straighter, refusing to back down from her stance on this. “You wouldn’t be that stupid, but he just might be. He would have to be because I’ve seen the way that moron looks at you. If he thinks that the answer to the universe isn’t you then my entire life is a lie.”
You run a hand over your face, frustration starting to settle in as you open your mouth to cement the point that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if he thinks the world revolves around you, there is another girl with his ring on her finger. No matter how that makes you feel, you aren’t going to force someone into picking you.
He made his choice, everyone needs to accept that.
That includes you.
“Talk to him.”
You don’t have a chance to close your mouth, words dying in your throat as Sarah chimes in. She sits up, her eyes landing on yours and they aren’t filled with the same determination as Kie’s. She doesn’t want to make you see reason because she sees yours.
It’s a look that tells you she sees his too.
“The two of you have had a lifetime of being afraid to actually confront any of this,” She says simply, putting her hand on your knee. “Both of you are in the worst shape I’ve ever seen you be. That doesn’t scream two people who are making the best decisions.”
You swallow your protests because she hasn’t given an opinion until now. Up until now, she has been listening to you and promising you that she doesn’t see you any differently. She doesn’t, that much you can tell. Just like you are the reason JJ and Rafe get along, she is the very reason you and her brother get along in the first place.
Two sides of the same coin.
In the space she has given you to express yourself, you can do the same for her.
“You don’t have to confess your love or put yourself in a position to feel any more hurt than you already are,” She tries to reason with your biggest fears about the idea. She always had a way of doing that better than anyone else. “But Kie’s right. A huge part of why I have always been so against you guys together is because I see the way you two look at each other. The two of you have something that I’m not really sure how to understand.”
“He’s-”
“He loves you,” Sarah says simply, stopping you from reiterating the same argument you had given Kie. “And yeah, maybe he loves her too. Or maybe he is as big an idiot as I think he is and has somehow twisted this all up and can’t find his way out. I’m not saying go ask to be his girlfriend or anything. As confusing as it all may be, you are his best friend. The two of you at least need closure on that front.”
You feel like the rug has been tugged out from underneath you, air rushing out of your lungs at her statement. She’s right, you know that she’s right, but that doesn’t mean you’ve ever really thought about the fact that you are Rafe’s best friend.
Not Kelce.
Not Topper.
You.
And while nobody could ever be Sarah, there is a piece of you that knows that Rafe understood you in ways nobody else could. She would always be your best friend, but he was something else entirely. It’s a big part of why it feels like your whole world ended with a ring.
“Hell, there can be a neutral third party if you want.”
A laugh bubbles out of your chest at the thought of Sarah trying to suffer her way through the awkwardness of you and her brother getting closure on a relationship that never really started. Or Kie just sitting behind the two of you glaring daggers at the back of his head and making stabbing motions anytime he says something you don’t like.
“The two of you-”
“Oh, no,” Sarah says, putting her hands up in the air as if the idea hadn’t just come out of her mouth. “Not us. I was going to make Pope do it.”
“Pope is far from neutral,” Kie points out.
“Well, he’s as close to a mediator as we’ve got,” Sarah counters. “Besides, I don’t think anyone really needs to be on Rafe’s side for this.”
It’s not a choice. She’s not picking you over him, isolating her brother in the name of being your friend. She had assured you countless times she wasn’t going to choose one of you over the other like that. However, she had made it clear that this mess was entirely caused by Rafe and that he was the one in the wrong.
There was nothing wrong with loving someone until there is.
You hadn’t gone over the line yet. You weren’t going to make him choose between you and Sofia. Even if you talked to him, you had accepted that the two of you would never happen. He had chosen a life with her, and you weren’t going to stand in the way of that.
You wouldn’t be able to see him as a friend, but someone like Topper or Kelce? An acquaintance for the convenience of the two friend groups being able to be around each other without threat of nuclear war? That much you’re sure you could manage.
Someday you could.
“Talk to him. Yell at him. Do whatever you have to do,” Sarah tells you, squeezing your knee with her hand. “We’ll figure it out, okay?”
You offer her a smile because you can’t help it. Because she somehow manages to be exactly the person you need no matter how hard you try to make it for yourself. The universe had put all of your luck into the day you met her, and how could you be mad at that?
“Okay.”
Her phone lights up on the coffee table Kie had dragged in a few weeks ago, saying that people always left perfectly good furniture on the side of the road. It has a few chips, and it wobbles to one side with the vibration of Sarah’s phone, but it fits in somehow.
The picture of John B is probably the most ridiculous one you have ever seen, his tongue out and eyes crossed, but there’s a laugh inside of you that you can’t stop from coming out. How you ever thought you would lose the people around you over this, you’re not sure.
You guys have become so deeply intertwined that you’re not sure anything could ever destroy this.
“Hello?”
She picks up the phone, pulling it to her ear with a smile.
“It’s not too late for us to run away together, you know?” Kie turns to you as Sarah stands up, taking her phone call into the kitchen so that she’s not talking in everyone’s ear. “Leave all of this behind and-”
“And JJ?” You shoot back, welcoming the teasing tone into your voice for the first time in too long. Kie smiles back at you, rolling her eyes at the idea.
“We’ll keep him around like a pet or something.”
You catch it out of the corner of your eye, the way Sarah’s smile drops for just a second before she is turning around and facing away from the two of you, voice going nearly silent almost immediately.
Kie follows your line of sight, her eyebrows furrowing together as Sarah quickly hangs up the phone, turning back to you guys with a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” You ask as she steps back into the half of the room you are occupying, tucking her phone into her back pocket.
She waves you off, assuring you it is nothing when you hear a ding from your phone.
Your hand is reaching around to grab it out of your pocket and she is across the room in a flash, putting her hand out to stop you.
“Maybe we should put our phones down for a minute.”
“What the fuck is going on?” You ask, tugging your phone out of your pocket.
It’s the first time your ringer has been on all week, finally turning it back on this morning when you had decided to start living your life again. You had blocked the person you were worried about coming across on your screen, so what could possibly be on there that Sarah is so worried about?
“Please,” Sarah dives for the phone, but you snatch it back as the noise goes off again pressed against your chest. “I just need to figure something out before you-”
“Before I what?” You ask, harshly holding your phone to keep it out of her prying fingertips. “What the hell is going on? Is everyone okay?”
Sarah lets out a deep breath as she fails to grab your phone again, rubbing at her face before giving a tug to the roots of her hair. A Cameron trait that has seemingly managed to not skip any member of the household. You’re positive you had seen Wheezie doing the exact same motion last time she called.
Defeat.
“Everyone’s fine. Well, maybe not everyone. Just-” She breathes out, searching for the words she wants to use before starting again. “I’m sorry.”
The apology has you pulling the phone away from your chest, an unknown number across your screen with a text. You unlock your phone, waiting for the message to finish loading, ignoring Kie’s attempts to peek at your screen.
It’s an article.
A random number had texted you a leaked article with Rafe and Sofia front and center. As if you didn’t already see the two of them together every time you close your eyes, now you are getting strangers texting it to you.
“Oh my god.”
Kie’s voice shakes you out of the trance, your eyes finally reading what is in front of you instead of dwelling on the faces that have managed to haunt you no matter how hard you try to move on.
Thought you should know.
The text is short enough, but the accompanying article has your phone falling onto the floor with a dull thud as everything goes numb.
