‘Nelson and I had agreed to leave all copies with the principal.You see, he explained there were a lot of students involved, some with prominent sporting careers ahead of them.’
‘Even if they were taking steroids?’Stone shook his head as he lifted his beer to take another sip.‘Talk about favouring those footballers.’
‘I bet you made plenty of mistakes when you were a teenager.’Romy couldn’t help but defend them, even with Stone’s shrug being so indifferent.‘Being a kid, it’s all about making mistakes, and if you’re lucky enough, you’ll have someone there to help guide you out of it.’Thankfully, Romy had her parents for that.
Stone pointed his beer at her.‘But you did nothing wrong.That coach did, and those students must have known the risk of taking steroids.’
‘But I didn’t want to play judge and jury—I didn’t want to destroy those student’s futures either.The principal promised us he’d do what he could to help those students.But he warned Nelson and me it would take time, as he had to speak to their parents individually.It was a huge issue, and it needed to be done delicately.And kept quiet.We were willing to take it to the grave, so to speak.It would have been so much easier if it had gone to plan…’
‘Let me guess, Ian and Suzie let it out on YouTube or something.’
Romy took another deep gulp from her wineglass.If she could swim in it, she would.
‘Easy does it.’Stone tugged on her glass.
Now why did Stone have to be nice again.It’d be easier if he wasn’t.
‘How did this Ian and Suzie ruin everything, when they were exposing something that was seriously wrong.Steroids in sports, but with teenagers.’
‘It was done the wrong way.Publicly, instead of just keeping it to those involved.’
‘Go on…’Stone sat very still, his focus so intense she had to look away.
‘Well, the football coach got fired.’
‘Did he get any criminal charges laid against him?’
Romy nodded.‘He ended up in prison.The school got stripped of all their awards for the entire time the football coach had worked at the school—going back ten years.’
‘Ouch.’Stone even screwed up his nose.
‘Sadly, it also ruined the reputation of all the school’s other teams, like the volleyball teams, the netball teams, the swimming teams, even the chess squad, who all felt the pressure from everyone looking at them as if they’d cheated, too.’
‘But it wasn’t their fault.’
‘The way Suzie presented it on camera, she had sensationalised it enough to say the entire school was involved.But they weren’t.It was just a select group on the football team.That’s all.’
‘But you’re dealing with teenagers.They would’ve read into it their own way.’
‘They did.And it got worse.’
‘How?’
Romy stared at her hands, as those hot flames of shame crept across her cheeks.‘Some swore they’d never touched steroids, begging for drug tests to clear their names.But my footage—showing them pocketing the packets as the coach gave his how-to speech—ended their sporting careers.’She slowly shook her head, her voice barely a whisper, ‘And out of the ten boys on that film, three of them suicided.’
Stone hissed, shifting in his seat to face her.
She wiped at a pesky tear trickling down her cheek.‘Wildlife is easier to film, because when you film people, it’s tricky.You never know how they’re going to react.And I was the director, who shot that film—’
‘But it wasn’t your fault.’Stone gently held her wrist, his thumb brushing softly over her skin, defrosting the chill that came with sharing the past.‘You didn’t release that footage, your friends did.’
‘If I’d just taken it home with me, like I normally did, they wouldn’t have found it, and the school wouldn’t have been so publicly disgraced.No one would have known—just the students involved, because the principal agreed to take the footage as an anonymous tip, keeping us out of it.’
‘But everyone found out that it came from you?’
She nodded.‘Nelson and I had to live under this dark cloud of disgrace.As far as the other students were concerned, we became the bad guys for filming something that was illegal.It was a big lesson on the ethical ways to do a film, the right way.’
‘That’s why you kicked up such a fuss with Julian and quit the day we met.It wasn’t just ethics, it was your personal morals, too.’
