Rafe was possibly the most childish man she'd ever encountered. How was it even possible for someone to be that immature, she had no idea. There was almost no choice but to retaliate. Throwing around things like 'go find another girl', and telling him how simple and average he was compared to the other guys she'd gone out with. This, of course, wasn't anywhere near true. But he didn't need to know that.

He knew exactly what she wanted. From the very beginning, she'd made it very clear. The ball had always been in his court, and she was waiting for him to take the initiative and reciprocate the energy that she gave him. She was quite literally begging him more than half the time, but he just didn't know how to step up onto the plate, for some reason.

Rafe fully, completely neglected her. Sometimes they'd go out together, and he wouldn't be fully present in the moment. Even when they were together, he wasn't completely there, and it frustrated her to no end. Every time at the end of an unsatisfactory date, he'd promise that it would be better next time, that he was just frustrated, tired. It would take him a second to pick himself back up, he promised.

She felt so shut out of his life. None of his friends really knew that they were together, and he wouldn't let her tell any of her friends either. Every time he'd be on the phone he'd shush her and step away so that she couldn't overhear, like he had secrets. And they weren't so serious that she needed to know everything he did all the time, but he acted like they didn't know each other at all sometimes.

He treated her like a fling, even though she took it way more serious than that. Just another thing that frustrated her to no end. To him, the relationship was nothing more than something to get him through the next few months. To her, she had thought that this could actually be it. Not anymore, of course. Maybe he'd realise what he could have when she pulled it back from him just a little bit.

She needed to know he was willing to commit. Needed that reassurance from him, that it wasn't just some silly romance that was going to fizzle out without a proper goodbye. She was used to this kind of stuff - dating Kooks, they all had the same pattern. Spoil you for the first few works, get uninterested, pick up a new ditz. But that wasn't her. She wasn't just someone to be discarded, and she was going to make sure that Rafe knew that.

So yeah, she was used to being disappointed. Falling for people too fast, getting her heart broken, not being able to pick up the pieces for a while. Rafe was going to have to work hard to convince her now. And to his credit, he was trying. It'd been a few weeks since she'd started the fade out - stopped texting him, planning hangouts. And over the last couple weeks, he was trying more and more. She thought it was pretty funny.

She came to a bonfire without him. That was his personal last straw - he was practically the King of the island, and she thought she was going places without him? Absolutely not. Anger burned through his veins, and he glared for a second before shaking it off. Putting on a face. He sat beside her on a log by a firepit, arm wrapping around her waist casually as he held a bottle of beer in the other hand.

"Missed you, baby. You didn't tell me you were gonna be here." He whispered into her ear, smiling a little and squeezing her hip.

"Nobody ever taught you how to be a real man, did they, Rafe?" She scooted away from his arm, much to his dismay. He frowned, because she'd never spoken to him with so much disrespect.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"