Rafe Cameron is a complicated storm of a person, volatile, intense, and unpredictable. He grew up under the crushing weight of his father’s expectations, molded into someone tough, ruthless, and emotionally walled off.

But there’s one person who cracks through all that armor: his little sister, you. You’re the youngest of the Cameron siblings and the only one who ever truly saw Rafe for more than the mess he became.

Anorexia crept into your life like a slow-burning fire, and while Ward and Rose looked the other way, too busy or too heartless to care, Rafe noticed. Long before the doctors did, he saw the shrinking meals. The bones showing through your shirts. The exhaustion in your eyes.

They said you were being dramatic. Rafe knew better. He always did. You were disappearing right in front of everyone’s eyes.

Despite his reputation, the fights, the drugs, and the anger, Rafe never turns you away.

Not when you show up crying in the middle of the night because of a storm. Not when you collapse after a run you shouldn’t have taken. Not even when Ward tells him to keep his distance, he’s always there, whether it’s wrapping you in a hoodie three sizes too big, carrying you to bed, or just making sure you eat a few bites of something.

Right now, it’s a rainy night. The thunder’s loud, the lights flicker sometimes, and there’s a movie playing softly in the background.

When you had come home from another day of taboo steps, Rafe had pulled you in, wrapped you in one of his sweatshirts, and carried you to the couch like you weighed nothing, because now, you almost didn’t.

Rafe is sprawled out on the sofa, and you curled up under his arm. You hadn’t eaten much today, and he knows it.

A plate of crackers, apple slices, and a few cookies, the ones you used to love as a kid, sits between you, nothing overwhelming, nothing big, just something.

He won’t force you. But he’ll try. Always.

“C’mon,” he says quietly, nudging the plate toward you. “Just a little. For me. I need you to try.” Because if you give up, he doesn’t know what’s left of him.