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He eyes me warily. “Jem and I had this ‘thing’ where whoever saw the groupie first at a party got her. I argued I’d seen Lily first when she arrived; he argued he’d spoken to her first in the village. In the end, we agreed to play our game and see who she went for.”
As Dylan’s story unfolds, unease morphs into a heavy sickness in my stomach. Game? “Go on…”
“We did this a lot with girls, to see which one of us they’d choose. Sometimes we’d…” He catches the look of disgust on my face. “Yeah, well. I watched as Jem turned on every seductive trick in his book to get her interested in him. I took a different approach: misunderstood rock star looking for love.”
I inhale sharply and he meets my eyes, knowing exactly what I’m thinking. She’s me. He’s described how he was in Broadbeach. An extra barrier against Dylan goes up.
Dylan stands and walks toward the front door, then turns toward me. “Everything that happened was my fault,” he whispers.
“How?”
“I could’ve stopped the game; I didn’t realise how far he would go.”
“Who? Jem? I thought she accused you?”
Dylan’s eyes are vacant, lost in the memory and I’m not sure he hears me. “I saw how uncomfortable she was becoming around Jem’s behaviour—you’ve met him when he’s high and that night he was intense. Jem told me he wanted her, needed to get to know her, how she was different. I saw what he meant because Lily was one of those people who inadvertently attracted people. She was natural.”
He rubs a palm across his face. “After a few hours, Lily looked to me more and more, trying to keep away from Jem. Jem lost his shit with me—really fucking weird. I’d never seen him like this over a girl and I couldn’t be bothered fighting, so I backed off. But then I noticed Lily leaving and stopped her. She trusted me because I’d been nicer to her and pulled Jem into line a few times when he got too intense. I guess I was being the considerate Mr Nice Guy as my strategy, so when I took her back to the party she was okay. Then I left her with Jem, half-hoping she’d tell him to piss off and come back to me.”
“You handed a girl back to your high friend like she was some kind of plaything?” My voice is barely audible. “What happened?”
Dylan crashes his head backward against the wall and stares at the dirty lampshade above. Is this as much of the story as I’m getting?
“They disappeared and I had a bad feeling about what he would do.”
The room contracts as I remember the creepy Jem, who approached me. “Was it him? Did he…?”
“I found him with her.” He heaves in a breath. “He wasn’t touching her but had Lily cornered. He also wasn’t listening and trying to kiss her when she clearly didn’t want him to. I don’t know if he would’ve done anything, but I walked in and hauled his ass out of the room.”
For the first time in his explanation, he looks directly at me, waiting for my reaction. I’m numb, his words washing over me as if I’m listening to a court case. “I don’t understand. Why did she say you were the one who raped her?”
“It wasn’t that night she accused me of raping her, but a couple of weeks later. To cut a long story short, because I felt guilty, I visited her a couple of times to make sure she was okay because she was a mess that night. Huge fucking mistake. Lily saw me as her knight in shining armour and wanted me. Even bigger fucking mistake? Having sex with her. Jem found out and went ballistic, accused me of planning this all along, and told her about our ‘game’ and my part in the whole episode. She hated me more than Jem. She blamed me for handing her over to him and keeping her there. She accused us both of rape, and lost her shit threatening to go to the papers and police.”
The lack of information about this on the internet tells me something. “Let me guess, Steve got involved and made everything go away?”
“Pretty much.”
The faraway look Dylan held when he arrived has intensified, and he stares at his boots. I walk to the window and look out. People pass by with bags of Christmas shopping, excited kids skipping along and gathering the tiny layer of snow from the wall to make snowballs. Ordinary.
If Dylan wanted to lie to me, he’d pick a story with him in a more favourable light and not one where he’s a villain.
I turn back to Dylan. “Why did you do all those things? How can you treat someone like that? Like they’re just your plaything?”
He looks me straight in the eyes. “Because I was high and thought I was entitled to anything. Back then, I didn’t give a shit about other people. And other stuff—complicated things between Jem and me.”
The stories about Blue Phoenix I came across from those years reinforce the extremity of his lifestyle, but this? He could have his pick of any girl, and he did this? “That doesn’t excuse what happened.”
“If it means anything, the incident opened my eyes to how fucked up I was. I went into rehab and didn’t touch a girl for months afterward.”
“Why? Scared you’d have to pay her off again?” I can’t help the edge to my voice. “I guess that’s how you fixed your little problem? Money?”
He shakes his head. “We didn’t. Well, not exactly. I paid for her Art course she’d applied for by persuading the department to give her their annual scholarship in return for a generous donation. I never had the chance to make amends with her. One night, plus my set of choices afterward, screwed up everything. Between Jem and me, and now between you and me.”
He leans against the wall, hands buried in his jacket pockets, back to staring at his boots.
Yes, if I want to let his past end any chance we had, and if I believe that Dylan hasn’t changed, that he deserves to be punished for his mistakes forever.
“Dylan, look at me.” He turns his tired eyes to mine. “Lily. The sex was a hundred percent consensual? There was no coercion at all?”
