Sorry to unleash this on you. We should chat about it properly. Over drinks. I’ve got a conference next month, maybe we can meet?

Jessica can come too!

Bloody hell.

Jessica.

Is she still ridiculously pretty?

Fern: Yep.

Jade: Fuck it. She’s not invited :)

I laughed, feeling soothed by Jade’s joke, even though she was the one who’d unruffled me. I took a giant breath and vowed to turn my computer off and actually do my reading. But, as I went to close the tab, a name in Mike’s Mutual Friends caught my attention and my hand guided the mouse to click on it.

Dave.

He still had his long hair, though it was more straggly now, and frizzy from age. He’d padded out, his stomach straining against his KISS T-shirt, his arms decorated with crap tattoos. All of his photos were of him playing the guitar, and I clicked through his Working info and found the name of his current band.

Angry Girl Collective™.

It couldn’t have been more ridiculous. There he was, part of a female-fronted band. The only guy there. The singer had long pink hair, and the drummer had long blue hair, and there was Dave, arms around both women, beaming at the camera. I clicked through onto the band’s website, and muttered “fuck” as their angry guitar music blasted out of my laptop. I turned it down, but not off, as it was sort of catchy. I clicked on the About Us page and read about the band’s ethos. “Female empowerment,” and “putting women at the front of the metal scene.” Dave smiled to the tips of his ears in each photo. Of course he did. From what I could tell, this was the first and only band he’d ever been in that had actually achieved anything. I zoomed in on his smile. I’d seen it before. At Georgina’s party. When a friend had high-fived him while she lay comatose with crumpled wings beneath her.

I’m not sure how much time passed until I came to again. Blinking myself out of the uncomfortable disassociation I’d fallen into. I hadn’t lost time like that in years, and a shiver tingled through me. A quiet rage was what yanked me back. A pulsing urge to do something.

I pulled up the band’s website, clicking on their Contact Us page.

Name: A friend

Email address: [email protected]

Message: Dave is a rapist. I thought it was important you should know. Be careful.