RIPTIDE | Rafe Cameron

22. 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘺 𝘴𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘮

Guilt. It eats you alive, it consumes your every thought, it controls you from the inside and makes you question everything you thought you knew about yourself. I always thought that I was a good person, but recent events have suggested otherwise. My friends still hate me, they don't even look at me when we pass in the street. My parents think I'm fine when in reality I'm struggling to keep my head above water, feeling as though I've got weights around my ankles that are trying to drag me down.

Everyone presumes John B and Sarah are dead, it's been over a week since they disappeared in that storm, and we've not heard from them or seen anything in the news about them. I have to hope that they're alive, because if I lose that hope, I lose my hope in Maggie still being alive, and without that hope I don't have much left to live for.

The first three days after John B and Sarah disappeared I was just about keeping myself afloat, staying at Tannyhill with Rafe to avoid my parents' persistent questions. Wheezie asks me questions, Ward tiptoes around me like I'm a fragile object and I'm pretty sure that Rose is terrified of me and my emotional instability. My parents keep asking if I'm okay, which obviously I'm not, but that facade of stability all came tumbling down on the fourth day.

When I came home to get myself some clean clothes to take back to the Cameron residence, I found the clothes Sarah had leant me and I spiralled. I spent three hours lying on the floor sobbing through waves of multiple anxiety attacks. Except I didn't have JJ there to calm me down, and I didn't want to burden Rafe, so I had to resort to other, less favourable options.

I never intended to start doing cocaine, especially after Rafe warned me off of it, but when the anxiety attacks, the flashbacks and the trembling stopped the first time I tried it, I quickly realised that quitting would be easier said than done.

Rafe doesn't know about the drugs, I told Barry that it has to stay that way if he wants to keep me as a customer, and who is he to say no? So whenever the dreams start or my mind goes dark with anxiety I'll do a line and everything is okay again, until it's not. But I've already slipped down the slippery slope that Rafe warned me about; when you do the coke so much that you stop feeling the emotions you were running away from in the first place.

As far as Rafe is concerned, he thinks I'm on the medication that the doctor suggested in that first intervention before John B went missing. Meanwhile my parents think I'm doing just fine, and that my improvement in emotional stability is all down to Rafe and his family's hospitality.

But without the drugs, I would be an emotional and physical wreck, a prisoner of my own guilt, for now I'm just emotionally and physically numb, relying on vices to keep me afloat.

If you had told me two months ago that today I'd be at a funeral, taking drugs just to get through the day all while holding onto the arm of Rafe Cameron, I probably would've called you a liar. But that's exactly what I'm doing, and nothing about it feels good.

We're at Sheriff Peterkin's funeral, and as the girlfriend of Rafe Cameron who is the son of the most respected man on the island, I sort of have to be there for the reputation of his family. If the choice were mine, I would still be in bed, pretending none of this had happened.

As the pastor begins his eulogy about the Sheriff's career and dedication to the community, I take Rafe's hand in mine, the pair of us standing beside the rest of his family as we watch the coffin be lowered into the ground.

I honestly don't know if Rafe is coping, he tells me that he's fine anytime I ask him, but he's a good enough liar that I can never tell if he's being honest about how he feels.

We've both changed a lot since Sarah and John B disappeared, arguably for the worse. Rafe is still physically affectionate, but he doesn't talk to me the way he once did, he's snappier, and he doesn't smile the way he used to. I really fucking miss his smile.