Peter was more than worried about Rion.

It was the same kind of concern he held for Noa – fear for his safety and well-being. Rion was clearly dealing with issues and trauma as severe as Noa’s. He wasn’t in a good place and he needed help.

Rion had silently protected Noa for six years, taking beatings and putting up with accusations while he was innocent. He barely had a support system, considering that his father was hardly ever around. He had no friends, no family he could count on.

Peter knew what it was like to take care of Noa. His cousin was a stubborn mess. He had daily struggles and unpredictable breakdowns. Peter and his parents put a lot of effort into taking care of him and managing his life. They never left him alone and most days they even had to encourage him to eat.

Rion had none of that. No one was looking out for him. No one was making sure he was okay.

It wasn’t right.

Some part of Peter felt horribly guilty. He knew he had failed Rion in almost every way that he could. But he had already decided not to dwell on it. He needed to do what he could for Rion starting right now. Action was needed more than guilt.

Peter had to do what he could. And what he could do was tell the others the truth.

The moment he got home, Peter called up Jesse. It barely rang before his mother answered the phone.

“Hello?”

Peter smiled at the sound of her voice. “Hello, Mrs. Warren. It’s Peter.”

“Oh, Peter!” Heather Warren said, her voice immediately warm and bubbly. “It’s been a while! How are you? And Noa? What about your parents?"

“We’re doing good,” Peter said. “I was just wondering if Jesse is home from work yet. I wanted to talk to him.”

“He’s here,” Mrs. Warren said. “I’ll hand the phone over but before I do, can I ask you to say hello to Elaine and Charlie for me?”

“Sure,” Peter said. “I think Mom actually wanted to ask you out for coffee next week. She’s just been busy lately.”

“That’s fine! I completely understand. Tell her I’ll be happy to meet up,” she said. “Here. Just a minute. Jesse!”

There was a pause followed by muffled voices and the sound of the phone changing hands. Then Jesse was on the line.

“Hello? Peter?”

“Jesse,” Peter began. “I need to talk to you and Celeste about Noa and Rion.”

“Okay,” Jesse said, soundly mildly confused. “Did something happen? Or… Oh no, Sarina didn’t…”

“No, no,” Peter said. “It’s not something Sarina did. Not exactly. It’s… It’s complicated. I’ve found something out, and… I don’t want to say it over the phone.”

“Okay,” Jesse said, going back to sounding lost at the reassurance that Sarina hadn’t done anything new. “Noa and Rion are okay though?”

“I’m not sure I would put it that way,” Peter said.

He took a breath and let it out slowly, considering his options.

“I haven’t called Celeste yet. And now that I think about it, maybe I should wait before telling her, since she might be in contact with Sarina,” he said. “You know… Are you free? Could I maybe come over and talk to you right now?”

“I don’t have plans… Are you sure that everything’s okay? You’re making me nervous.”

“I just need to tell you something. Danny already knows… We learned something new about the friendship bracelets.”

“Oh. Well, okay. I’ll let Mom know you’re stopping by.”

“All right. Thanks, Jesse,” Peter said. “I’ll be over in a bit.”

“Okay,” Jesse said. “See you.”

Peter hung up the phone and nearly jumped when a voice spoke up from behind him.

“Did you see Rion?”

“Noa!” Peter exclaimed, spinning around. “You snuck up on me.”

Noa was staring up at Peter, clearly expecting an answer. Peter could dodge the question if he wanted, but he didn’t want to let his cousin down, especially when Noa was addressing him directly. He hardly spoke more than a few words on any given day.

“I saw Rion today, yes,” Peter admitted.

“Is he okay?” Noa asked, a hint of concern bleeding into his expression.

“I…wish I could say yes,” Peter began, “but no. He’s not. He’s dealing with a lot right now.”

Noa looked down, fidgeting. Then he turned and headed for the living room.

“Hey, wait,” Peter said, moving to follow him. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You didn’t,” Noa said, pausing to glance back at him. “I’m worried about Rion.”

“Me too,” Peter said. “I want to help him.”

Noa was silent for a moment before he gave a short, stiff nod.

“Rion’s a good person,” Noa said. “I want him to be happy.”

“You’re still okay if we have him over for a visit sometime, right?” Peter asked.

Noa nodded.

“Okay,” Peter said. “A lot has been going on so I wanted to double check. I’d like him to come over too. He’s dealing with a lot of stuff right now.”

“Like Sarina?” Noa asked.

And, oh, that was quite the look on Noa’s face. He did not look happy at the thought of Sarina. Normally his expression stayed flat and impassive, but he made a face like he swallowed a lemon just saying Sarina’s name.

Peter wondered if maybe it had been a bad idea to tell Noa what was going on with Rion and Sarina. But then, no. Telling Noa the truth was the right thing to do.

“Sarina’s part of the problem,” Peter admitted. “But it’s a little more complicated than that.”

Noa nodded. “Let me know if I can do anything to help Rion.”

“Okay,” Peter said, his heart swelling, happy that Noa wasn’t just talking to him but that he was worried about Rion. If Noa was motivated enough to help problem solve, that was a good sign. “I’ll let you know if there’s anything you can do. I really appreciate that, Noa. I’m pretty sure Rion will too.”

Noa nodded again before turning and wandering off to the living room couch. He picked up his sketchpad and took a seat. Peter’s dad was there and gave him a wave.

“Going somewhere?” he asked as Peter headed for the door. “Didn’t you just get home?”

“I have some things to take care of at Jesse’s,” Peter said. “I’ll be home in a bit. Oh. His mom says hi by the way.”

“That’s nice of her,” his dad said. “Say hi back.”

“Sure thing.”

Peter headed out for a second time that day. Jesse’s house was next door so he barely had to walk down the street.

The Warrens were a great family. Mr. and Mrs. Warren were friends with his parents. He’d seen a lot of them growing up.

Jesse was an only child, so it had always just been him and his parents. That meant when the adults got together, the kids usually hung out together too. Amber, Peter, and Noa had seen a lot of Jesse.

Of course, Jesse had always been the closest with Amber. Whenever he came over, they used to play together. It didn’t matter what they did, they had always been glued to the hip. Amber used to say that Celeste and Jesse were both her best friends until Jesse asked her out when they were fourteen. Then he was her boyfriend.

Peter had also seen his share of Jesse’s house. It hadn’t changed much over the years and when he arrived, he was even received with the same enthusiastic welcome from Jesse’s mother.

“Peter!” she said when she answered the door. “Come on in. Can I get you anything?”

“No, that’s all right. Thanks,” he said to her, flashing her a smile.

As much as he liked the Warrens, he wasn’t really in the mood for small talk. Fortunately, Jesse was there right away.

“Hey,” he greeted Peter.

“Hey,” Peter returned.

“Make yourself at home,” Mrs. Warren added. “We’re going to have stew for supper tonight if you’re staying. You’re more than welcome to join us.”

“Thanks,” Peter said. “There’s some stuff going on and I just need to talk to Jesse. I might not be that long.”

After light small talk, Peter was able to escape to Jesse’s room. It was an orderly, if not sparse bedroom, almost impersonal in how plain it was.  Jesse didn’t even have posters up.

But there was one thing in Jesse’s room that was very eye-catching and always drew Peter’s immediate interest. Lucky, very lucky Jesse had inherited his old family computer when they’d swapped it out for a new one. Which meant that Jesse had a full desktop PC setup in his room. It could even access the Internet.

Peter was jealous. He wouldn’t deny it, even to himself. His parents hadn’t seen the need to upgrade their family computer yet, and though they’d been talking about it, they hadn’t decided what they would do when they were done with it. Peter was trying to convince them that he should have it, since he was literally doing a computer sciences program in college.

“So, what’s going on?” Jesse asked, taking a seat on the bed. “What’s so important that you can’t wait to tell me?”

Peter took a seat at the computer desk, just because he could. It felt right. Maybe when he had more time, he would ask Jesse more about his setup and what games he might have.

“Danny and I have been talking to Rion,” Peter said. “He’s not doing okay. The whole Sarina situation is really messed up.”

“Yeah. I know,” Jesse said. “I was there at the park. Did something else happen? You said that it wasn’t about Sarina…”

“Well… It’s… I feel bad talking about it,” Peter admitted, taking a moment to consider how he should phrase things. “You know how it started storming after we left the hotel? Well… Everyone started leaving and then Rion had a bad reaction.”

“A bad…?” Jesse started to ask but then he sat straighter, eyes going big. “Oh! Oh, right! He always struggled with storms because of his mom. Oh… Peter, I wasn’t even thinking. If I’d realized, I would have stayed.”

“It worked out. Danny and I helped him,” Peter said, “but it was pretty bad. Rion collapsed. I had to carry him home. Danny and I took care of him until his dad came back from work.”

“I still feel bad. I didn’t know he was still struggling with storms. I mean, I know he always used to hide from them as a kid, but…”

Peter nodded. “If that was all that happened, I wouldn’t have rushed to see you. I ended up finding a friendship bracelet that was still perfectly intact in Rion’s room. I found the wrecked one too, and… Basically, Rion had a ruined bracelet and one that was untouched.”

Now Jesse was looking at him, lost.

“Two?” Jesse said. “There were two? But…what? What does that mean? How could he have two bracelets?”

“I did some sleuthing to find that out,” Peter admitted with a humourless smile. “It turns out that Rion had Noa’s bracelet. I had a conversation with Noa, and… It turns out that Noa was the one who wrecked his bracelet. Rion took it from him. This whole time, Rion’s bracelet was fine. He lied to us.”

Jesse’s mouth dropped open. He stared at Peter for a long moment in disbelief. Peter let him have it since he felt the exact same way.

“Rion… But why?” Jesse said. “Why would he lie about it? Why would Noa…? I don’t understand.”

“I talked to Noa, and later Danny, and I confronted Rion about it,” Peter said. “Apparently what happened was… Noa cut up his bracelet and got into a fight with Rion about it. Rion took the bracelet and Noa told him to go away. After that, Sarina found the bracelet at Rion’s. She made assumptions, thought it was his, and made all of us confront him. And then Rion lied to protect Noa. He lied so that we wouldn’t be mad at Noa. So this whole time he’s been…he’s been taking it in the teeth.”

Jesse put a hand to his mouth, his eyes flicking back and forth as he thought about what Peter said.

“That… Shit,” he finally said. “I can’t… You talked to Noa and Rion?”

“Both of them,” Peter said.

“And they both… They admitted it? You’re sure?”

“Yes. Rion fought for the lie but when Danny said we could find out which bracelet was which by looking at old pictures, Rion broke down. It was really sad to see. He started crying, and… He didn’t want us to tell anyone, but I told him I couldn’t promise that. I think this is something everyone needs to know.”

“I just… Wow. I mean… Fuck,” Jesse said, scrubbing his face with his hands and then reaching up to ruffle his hair. “This whole time… Sorry, I just can’t believe it. I don’t even know what to say.”

“I know,” Peter said. “I feel the same way. This is a lot.”

“I can’t believe he was keeping this a secret all this time,” Jesse said. “To protect Noa…”

“He was really afraid of Noa getting hurt,” Peter said. “Even when Danny and I were talking to him. That’s why he didn’t want us to tell anyone. He’s scared that everything he’s put up with will get transferred over to Noa. He’s especially scared of Sarina’s reaction.”

“Noa? No. No one would ever blame Noa. He obviously has issues,” Jesse said. “I mean, with what happened with his dad and his reaction to Amber’s death…”

“But that’s not fair, is it?” Peter said. “I know what you’re saying. I don’t think anyone would have ever blamed Noa, especially not Sarina… But it’s not right that we blamed Rion either. Everything that we were upset at him for was a lie, and who did what… We got upset over a bit of string.”

“I… You’re right,” Jesse said, looking down, his guilt evident. “You’re right. That’s not fair… But it wasn’t a bit of string either. It was…”

He put his face in his hands and let out a long breath.

“Man…” Jesse said, leaning back. “This is…a lot. And you’re going to tell Celeste and Sarina?”

“I think I have to,” Peter said. “They need to know. Especially Sarina. But I can’t talk to her right now since I know that if I do, I’ll lose it on her. I want to talk to Celeste but I think the timing needs to be right. She’s…”

“Gentle,” Jesse said. “Sensitive. She cares a lot. It’s going to take a while for her to process. I mean…I’m not even done processing this. It’s…”

“Yeah.”

“Did you want me to do it? Talk to Celeste?”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll try to make plans. I’ll give her a call.”

“Okay. Let me know if I can help.”

“You can,” Peter said. “You can help. Not with Celeste but with Rion. I’m really, really worried about him. He’s been putting up with all this stress and pressure on top of the abuse and bullying… Rion has no support system at all. I know what it’s like with Noa. He struggles all the time with all kinds of things. Sometimes he has trouble just going downstairs in the morning. I can’t imagine how bad things are for Rion.”

Jesse frowned, fidgeting. “But…what can we do to help him?”

“Rion needs a support system,” Peter said. “He needs people to look out for him and to make sure he’s okay. I’m worried he might be depressed, and… I’m worried. Really worried. He needs people checking in on him.”

“Like calling and visiting?” Jesse asked.

“Yes. That,” Peter said. “It’s hard to know for sure what he needs, but… We need to be there for him as much as we can. I’m going to try and do weekly visits. If you have spare time, please give him a call or something. I don’t want him to do something extreme – like hurt himself.”

Jesse’s eyes had gone round again. “You really think he would hurt himself?”

“Yes,” Peter said. “We need to keep an eye out for that kind of thing.”

“I… I don’t even know what to look for,” Jesse said. “I want to help, but… If it’s that serious, shouldn’t we tell his dad?”

“I intend to,” Peter admitted.

Of course, it was going to be hard to get a hold of Mr. Blum. He was away most of the time. But Peter was more than willing to try until he got through.

He might have to wait until he sorted things out. And he wanted to talk to his parents about it too. They might have more ideas, things he wouldn’t think of. Peter knew that his mother was especially good at handling tough situations.

“Well… I’ll try to check in on him when I can,” Jesse said. “This…this is really a lot…”

“I know,” Peter said, “but this is why we have to do what we can. Rion needs all the help and support that he can get.”