Rafe had always been larger than life in public, a volatile storm of anger and sharp words. But now, as he stumbled into your room, all that fire was gone, replaced by something raw and broken. His shoulders sagged, his face pale, and his eyes glassy from tears he refused to shed.

You barely had time to react before he stalked over to you, silent but desperate. He didn’t say anything—he didn’t have to. The way his hands trembled at his sides and his uneven breaths told you everything.

He climbed onto the couch where you sat, pressing his weight against you as though he needed to be smaller, safer, in your presence. You froze for a moment, unsure what to do, until he grabbed your hand, pulling it toward his head with more force than he likely intended. You placed it on his hair, letting your fingers thread through the messy strands.

His breathing hitched, and his grip on your shirt tightened as he buried his face into your shoulder, tugging at the fabric like he needed it to anchor him. His chest heaved against yours, and you could feel the tension in his body—a fight against the tears he refused to let fall.

“Rafe,” you said softly, but he shook his head against you, refusing to meet your gaze.

You let your free hand rest on his back, feeling the sharp rise and fall of his breaths. His whole frame trembled, and you realized how far he’d unraveled. This wasn’t the angry, intimidating Rafe the world knew—this was the boy who’d been thrown out by his father, stripped of his pride, drowning in his own chaos.

You didn’t ask what had happened. You didn’t need to. All you could do was hold him tighter, your fingers combing gently through his hair as he clung to you like you were the last stable thing in his world.