tell me in front of the others. Had I not been so eager to know that I didn’t care who heard, I still wouldn’t have cared if the team did.
I was about ready to launch myself at him and hit him until he told me when he finally took a deep breath.
“There was this guy a few years back. Tried to rape her,” he finally said.
There were audible, almost wounded gasps from everyone in the room, mostly Rollie.
“Tried?” I clarified.
“Failed.”
That didn’t mean it had been any less traumatic. It didn’t make it better. I knew that. I was still glad he hadn’t succeeded, though, and I was proud of my sister’s strength. Did nothing to calm my indignation on her behalf, mind. I’d known my best mate for long enough to recognise the rigidness of his jaw just then for what it was, but it also did very little to soothe the rising rage in me.
“What?” I shouted. “Just… What?”
I’d started pacing back and forth. My mind raced. My heart hammered. It was suddenly getting really difficult to breathe, like I couldn’t draw enough air into my lungs anymore. There was a lump in my throat accompanying the very unfamiliar sensation of failure that was threatening to overwhelm me.
Unable to say anything else, I just waved a hand at Chaos to continue. He didn’t need it spelled out.
“Apparently it was some friend of that Travis kid?”
I nodded in answer to his question; I remembered Travis. He’d been an utter wanker and no mistake. As had all his friends.
“Travis Filmore,” I muttered. “Did she say who it was?”
Chaos shook his head. “Never has.”
“You talk about it a lot?”
“Not really. It comes up when she doesn’t sleep well for a while. It aggravates her anxiety.”
I whirled around to face him. “She has what, now?”
Chaos looked as apologetic as I’d ever seen him. “She’s dealing with it. Healthily. Counselling and meds when she needs.”
“How is it you know these things before me?” I asked no one in particular because I knew the answer.
Bert didn’t talk to me about this stuff because she thought it would worry me. Like Chaos was stronger than me somehow? Pfft.
But no. It was that different relationship Chaos had tried explaining to me back when he first told me that he loved her. It was that whole ability and need to be vulnerable with someone else. It was a different kind of vulnerable you had with family, where you wanted to protect them from your shit. It was the kind you needed for a real and close relationship, one that meant something and lasted. Family were obliged to love you so we wanted to save them from our shit. A real relationship was best when they loved you despite your shit. Even I understood the theory of that. What I didn’t like was having it shoved firmly in my face.
I couldn’t be mad at Bert for trying to protect me, as misguided an idea as it was. I was her big brother. It was my job to protect her. I wanted to protect her. And I’d failed her.
I suddenly felt like the twat who goes through a competition thinking he’s the best at everything and winning it all, only to discover at the end that he came stone-cold last and everyone thought he was a total ponce.
I took a deep breath as I put my hands on my hips and looked at my best mate. “I’m going to say something now and, once it’s done, there’s no need to talk about it further, okay?”
There was a hesitant nodding from the assembled team.
“I’m glad she’s got you, mate,” I told him, holding his eyes for long enough that I saw he understood the sentiment for what it was, that he understood all the other things that had remained unsaid.
Chaos nodded once and I cleared my throat.
“Right. I’ll bet it was that Drew fucker. He always was a lurker.”
“If it was, I have his address,” Nico said and we all looked at him.
“What?” I asked.
“Have you been over there just stalking all Bert’s old school mates?” Rollie asked him.
Nico’s shrug said, ‘sort of, but it’s not that simple. Heathen’. “I have an address for Travis Filmore and Drew Reid among others. Some Baxter person seems to have fallen off the face of the Earth, but I can probably find him with a bit more time.”
Even thought I’d known him and his computer skills for years, I was both impressed and slightly