He sighs, toes his shoes off, and sits down on the bed. “It was boring. And terrifying. Almost always one or the other. Boredom—having nothing to enjoy, feeling like there’s nothing to look forward to—it’s dangerous. Makes people do… things they wouldn’t, otherwise. Half the violence was just boredom, just blowing off steam.”
He’s looking at the floor as he talks and he trails off for a minute, watching as I get undressed.
“I was a kid,” he says. “Twenty-one. When the sentence got handed down and it actually sunk in that I was going to prison….” He shakes his head, eyes distant. “You have no idea how fucking terrified I was. I wanted to cry and hide at my mother’s apartment. I’m not kidding. I wasn’t rational. All I could think was that I had to run away somehow.”
It’s so unlike the Rafe I know that I can only imagine how scared he’d have had to be to consider leaving his family.
“And, of course, the idea that I might not be able to use whenever I wanted… that was almost as scary.” He sits on the side of the bed and wiggles his fingers at Shelby, who bats at them halfheartedly until Rafe picks her up and cuddles her. Then she takes a swipe at his hand and jumps off the bed. Rafe sucks on the scratches she raised.
“The first night I was there—shit, the first week—I didn’t sleep. I was so damn scared, Colin. Honestly, I only got clean because I was too scared to try and score in prison. You could do it, but I just wanted to keep my head down. Didn’t want to owe anyone any favors, step on anyone’s toes. Shit, I barely even talked to anyone. Anyway, it was…. You know, you just… you can get used to almost anything, if you have to.”
He sits up straighter and holds out a hand to me, pulling me so I’m standing between his knees. I put my hands on his shoulders.
“Listen,” he says, leaning his cheek into my arm and looking up at me, “I’ll tell you anything you want to know. But can we be done for now?”
“Yeah, course.”
He stands and strips for bed.
“But if you swore off fighting, then why did you help me that night? The night we met. I—I mean, I was out of it, but I saw you. You took those guys apart.”
Rafe steps close to me and leans in until his mouth is close to mine. “I couldn’t help myself,” he murmurs. “I saw you sitting at the bar earlier.” He kisses my throat and I lean into him. “You looked so nervous. Miserable. And—fuck, I don’t know what it was.” He kisses my shoulder. “But I’ve never wanted anything so much in my life.” My heart starts to hammer, and I wrap my arms around his waist. “When I saw you were in trouble, I just—” He pulls me hard against his chest and holds me. “I just ran after you. Didn’t even think about it until it was all over.”
He runs his hands through my hair, then pushes me down onto the bed and crawls on top of me.
“I just knew I had to get to you.”
WHEN I get to the YA parking lot, no one’s there. I find everyone in the basement. Rafe catches my eye immediately and he gives me an apologetic look. When I get closer, I can see he looks tired. Stressed. Mikal, Carlos, Mischa, and DeShawn are in a tight huddle, and everyone is talking at once. And what they’re huddled around is Anders. And he’s shaking.
Ricky’s standing off to the side, rocking back and forth as Dorothy tries to calm her down and keep an eye on Anders at the same time.
“I hate your dad!” Mikal yells, clenching his glitter-polished fingers into a fist and snarling. The others echo his sentiment, but Anders just keeps looking at the ground like he doesn’t know what to do with his friends’ anger. And when he does look up, it’s Rafe he looks to. Rafe, who’s standing still, whose shoulders are set tight, and who’s holding his hands behind his back like a bouncer.
Carlos is the first of the kids to see me. His “Hey, Winchester” is subdued. I’ve never seen him look so serious.
I’m not sure what’s going on, but I can tell Anders isn’t going to talk with everyone staring at him. “Hey, guys,” I say to the kids. “Let’s go outside and I’ll let you, um… hit our car with a tire iron?”
Rafe’s head jerks up and I shrug at him. Anders’ lip starts to tremble a little more, and I gesture the kids toward me. They’re reluctant, but I herd them out with promises that vehicular violence will help them get their aggression out. I know I guessed right when, at the door, I turn back and see Anders slowly dissolve into tears, shaking in Rafe’s arms the second his friends aren’t there to see.