Your hand has been inching closer to Rafe’s in the dark. Your fingers were just barely touching now, and it felt strangely intimate. A moment more intimate than the moments you spent entangled with your boyfriend. A boyfriend who was asleep downstairs, unaware of how long you’d been up on the roof talking with Rafe.

With every slight brush of your fingers against his, Rafe’s mind is filled with memories of the two of you. The good, bad and beautiful. The times you’ve hurt each other, and the times you’ve healed each other are both in his mind. A constant reminder that however entangled the two of you were, you’d never crossed the line into something more.

do you love me, want me, hate me, boy? I don’t understand

“You’re my biggest heartbreak” you whisper, breaking the tense silence between the two of you. “I wish you could see how easy this would be”

“How easy what would be?” He asks, his thumb tracing circles over the back of your hand.

“Us, you and me” you sigh, his touch awakening something in you. “But you’re the most stubborn man I know, so I keep trying to be patient”

it’s back and forth, going over everything I said

“I don’t know that you should be patient” he hears the frustration in your voice, it matches how he’s feeling; being this close to you and not being able to claim you as his. He hates that you’re with someone else, hates it more that he knows he could easily change that. But he always seems to sabotage himself with you.

“You know who I am. I’m not good for you”

His words hurt. You want to shake him, to tell him to forget his pride. You remind yourself this is why you have a boyfriend, because however close you get to Rafe, he will always push you away. You keep trying to step off of the emotional rollercoaster that is the two of you, but in some masochistic way you find it exciting. It’s always one step forward and three steps back with him.

it’s back and forth, maybe this is all your fault instead