Chapter Two

Raelynn

There should be a scientific study conducted on teenage girls and humiliation. Specifically: Why do we continue returning to the exact thing that hurts us?

A moth sees fire once and thinks, terrible idea. A girl gets emotionally rejected and thinks, perhaps with better lighting.

Two years after the party, I had mastered the art of pretending not to love Asrael Kerrigan. Unfortunately, I had not mastered the art of actually not loving him. Those are very different skills.

“You’re staring again.”

I looked away from the kitchen doorway so fast I nearly gave myself whiplash.

“I am not.”

Rhett snorted from the fridge. “You’ve been holding the orange juice upside down for like two minutes.”

I glanced down. The carton was indeed upside down.

“That means nothing.”

“It means you inherited exactly zero survival instincts.”

“Why are you even here?” I muttered.

“I live here.”

“Debatable.”

He grinned lazily before stealing bacon straight from the pan. I slapped his hand away immediately.

“Mom said stop doing that.”

“Mom also said stop threatening people with kitchen knives but here we are.”

“I have never threatened anyone.”

“You chased me through the backyard with a spatula last week.”

“You deserved it.”

“I forgot one birthday.”

“You forgot fifteen birthdays.”

“That sounds fake.”

“It’s literally my entire life.”

Rhett laughed and leaned against the counter, still wearing sweatpants despite it being nearly noon.

College had somehow made him worse.

Meanwhile, I stood there in my school uniform trying not to glance toward the living room every three seconds like a malfunctioning security camera.

Asrael was there. Of course he was there. He practically lived at our house. Sometimes I wondered if mom loved him more than she loved either of her actual children.

“Morning, Rae.”

And there it was. That voice. Warm honey over gravel. Bad for my blood pressure. I turned around too quickly and nearly dropped the juice carton. Asrael caught it one-handed before it hit the floor. Show-off.

“Careful,” he said, laughing softly.

At seventeen, I’d grown taller. My face had sharpened slightly. My hair was longer now. But around him, I still became painfully aware of every awkward inch of myself. Especially because Asrael looked unfairly good that morning. Dark hoodie. Messy hair. Sleep-heavy eyes. Like some expensive cologne ad designed specifically to ruin teenage girls academically.

“You staying for breakfast?” mom called from upstairs.

“If you’re offering,” Asrael shouted back.

“You know where the plates are!”

“See?” Rhett muttered. “You’ve been replaced.”

“You were replaceable.”

“Cruel.”

Asrael smirked and bumped my shoulder lightly while moving past me toward the cabinet. Tiny gesture. Tiny meaningless gesture. Catastrophic emotional consequences. I hated this. No. That was a lie. I loved this. That was the problem.

For years, my feelings for Asrael had become stitched into everyday life; movie nights, teasing arguments, late-night ice cream runs, him helping me with math homework, sitting beside him during thunderstorms because I hated lightning. Nothing dramatic ever happened. And maybe that was why I couldn’t let go.

Loving him felt less like a crush now and more like breathing. Natural. Constant. Impossible to switch off.

Which was exactly why I made another terrible decision three weeks later. Cold October rain hammered against the windows while Rhett was out with friends and my parents attended some charity event downtown. Meaning, I was home alone.

Well. Almost alone.

Asrael sat cross-legged on the living room floor surrounded by papers and his laptop, swearing quietly at a finance assignment.

“You look homicidal,” I observed.

“I am.”

“Need help?”

“You failed algebra twice.”

“That feels unnecessarily personal.”

He laughed under his breath without looking up. I curled deeper into the couch blanket and watched rainwater slide down the windows. The house felt strangely soft tonight. Muted. A lamp glowed beside the television. Thunder rumbled somewhere far away.

It felt intimate. And seventeen-year-old girls are biologically incapable of making good decisions in intimate weather.

“You know,” I said carefully, “I wasn’t joking at Rhett’s party.”

Asrael kept typing for a moment before pausing. Then he looked up slowly. The room suddenly felt much smaller.

“I know.”

That startled me.

“You do?”

“I figured it out eventually.”

“Oh.”

Brilliant response, Raelynn. Truly intellectual stuff.

He leaned back slightly, studying me now with an expression I couldn’t fully read.

“Rae…”

There are certain tones people use before breaking your heart. That was one of them. But I pushed forward anyway because apparently humiliation had become my favorite extracurricular activity.

“I still like you,” I admitted quietly.

Thunder rolled outside. Asrael exhaled slowly through his nose. Then he smiled. Small. Careful. Like he was handling something fragile.

“You’re seventeen.”

There it was again. The age excuse. Not cruel. Not dismissive. Just impossibly final.

“I know that.”

“And I’m twenty-two.”

“That’s only five years.”

“At your age, five years is a lot.”

I hated that he sounded reasonable. Reasonable people are impossible to argue with.

“You’ll outgrow this eventually,” he said gently.

The words slipped into my chest like tiny blades. Outgrow. Like I was wearing feelings too childish for me now. Like loving him was something embarrassing my future self would cringe at.

“What if I don’t?”

His expression softened immediately. That almost made it worse.

“You will.”

The confidence in his voice shattered something quietly inside me. Not because he was cruel but because he truly believed it. I stared down at my hands before forcing out a laugh so fake even I hated hearing it.

“Wow,” I muttered. “This is embarrassing.”

“Rae.”

“No, it’s okay.” I smiled too quickly. “Really.”

He closed his laptop finally and stood. For one terrifying second, I thought he might hug me. I would’ve died on the spot. Instead, he sat beside me on the couch. Close enough for warmth. Far enough for heartbreak.

“You’re important to me,” he said carefully.

Every girl in love should be protected from that sentence. It sounds beautiful. It rarely means what you want it to mean.

“You’re Rhett’s little sister.”

There it was. The title again. Not Raelynn. Not a girl. Not someone he could love. Just Rhett’s little sister. My throat tightened painfully. Still, I nodded. Because what else could I do? Force him to love me?

People always talk about unrequited love romantically. Poetry. Longing. Yearning. They never mention how humiliating it feels sometimes. How small. How every confession feels like placing your heart into someone’s hands and watching them give it back politely because it does not belong to them.

“I should probably stop saying things like this,” I said with a weak laugh.

Asrael looked genuinely relieved by that. And somehow that hurt worse.

I had been talking to Grant, a friend from school, occasionally. Mostly whenever I felt like I was suffocation on my one-way trafficked emotions. He was handsome and helped me get carried away and he claimed to want company so it was always a win-win.

But for some reason, I never saw him as a romantic interest. Sure he looked good and smelled nice and was kind and what not but I was fully blinded by my love for Asrael that no matter how good the looked or was, I lacked interest.

I tried explaining this to Grant but he didn’t get me at all. Had this man ever fallen in love? Or was I just obsessed?

“Look Grant we can’t date,” I tried.

“Why not? I don’t see what is stopping us,” he argued.

“I like someone else and I’ve told you before,” I sighed.

“I’m not trying to sound rude but from what I know Asrael doesn’t like you.”

My breath hitched, I felt a bitter lump form in my throat. Of all things he could’ve chosen to say he saw that fit. My vision began to blur. I felt tears welling up in my eyes. No. Not here. Not now.

“So why don’t you just forget the guy and date me,” he added.

My fists clenched and the next thing I knew, I was towering above him with an empty glass orange liquid dripping from his head to his white polo t-shirt. I couldn’t care less whether it got stained or cost a thousand dollars.

“I don’t want to ever see you again. You got that?”

I stormed off and immediately went home. His words were replaying in my head and I thought I was going to lose it. I wished I could cry and forget it all happened. I sat by my window staring into nothing and I eventually fell asleep.

I woke up to my phone buzzing. It was Grant. I really didn’t want anything to do with him so I blocked his contact on all platforms. A part me was quietly wishing I could block what he had said about Asrael.

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