Everyone says we’re perfect together.

When we walk into a room, heads turn. When he pulls me close, people whisper. They call us golden, untouchable, the couple everyone wants to be.

And I believe it, too.

Because loving Rafe Cameron is beautiful.

Until it isn’t.

It started the first time he told me I looked prettier with my hair down. After that, I stopped wearing ponytails. Then it was the way he said he loved how tiny I was, how fragile I felt in his arms.

“You’re perfect just like this,” he murmured against my skin one night, his fingers tracing my ribs.

So I skipped breakfast the next morning.

And the next.

And the next.

It’s not like he forced me. He never had to. I wanted to be the girl he saw me as. The one who was easy to love, who never annoyed him, who never asked too many questions.

“You get in your head too much, babe,” he told me once when I asked why he’d ignored my texts all day. “Just chill, okay? You know I love you.”

So I chilled.

Even when I saw him flirting with other girls. Even when I caught him lying.

“You’re my girl,” he always said, kissing my forehead. And every time, I believed him.

Because he never hit me. Never screamed. Never did anything that couldn’t be brushed off with an I didn’t mean it or You’re being dramatic.

So when my friends started warning me, I laughed.

“You don’t know him like I do,” I told them. “You only see the bad parts.”

And maybe that was true.

Because when it’s just us, when it’s his hands on my waist, his voice in my ear, his promises wrapped around me like silk—how could it not be love?

I just wish it didn’t hurt so much.

But love is supposed to hurt a little, right?

At least, that’s what I tell myself.

All because I liked him.