A Storm Is Brewing

Rhys

Rhys POV:

I would use many words to describe my sister, but dramatic wouldn't be one of them. Throughout our teenage years, Sophie had been the one to keep me grounded and remind me that adapting to our new family setup would allow me to be truly happy. Throughout her time at university, her love for books, history, and Hannah was so apparent. It became hard not to be proud of her achievements, even if I slightly envied her for the pride that she brought our parents when I was bringing nothing but trouble.

On the day that she graduated, our mum wasn't there to watch her. Sophie tries to pretend that Mum's reaction to her sexuality wasn't hurtful. She protects mum and sees her as someone who simply struggles with the concept, but deep down it lives within her. Sophie's life has been lived trying to be the reason that others smile, trying to be the person that fixes everything that others feel powerless towards, but forgetting that she too needs to allow others to help her.

We have always been close; silly squabbles over our differing opinions last for short bursts of time rather than the excessively long fallouts that consume families around the world. I was the first person Sophie told when she met Hannah; she had always confided in me about her confusion over her lack of interest in boys and subsequent infatuation with females. Her heart was broken when she found Hannah; she felt she had found her forever person, but it wasn't easy in Ireland to be the person in the family that doesn't follow the social 'norm'. Through time and a lot of hugs, I managed to convince her that her feelings did not define her, nor did the opinions of narrow-minded people who failed to see that love knows no genders.

On that day in July, Sophie frantically called me to find out my whereabouts. She didn't know that I was on my way to dinner with some friends; I could tell she needed me, so I pretended to just be at the shop and returned to our dad's house, the place I had never moved out of. Dad was in England, as he often was due to car deliveries, which meant that he was kept out of the situation that became one of the biggest events in our lives. A situation that we swore we would never tell anyone about.

Sophie burst through the doors, her face pale and her eyes puffy. She tried to explain what had happened. I initially thought that Colin Coyle had been found guilty, believing that she was worried that his people may come for her after her inability to keep him free. Once she calmed enough to speak in full sentences, she explained that he had sworn to her that he could never have murdered a young man. He had children himself, making her believe his lies, as her innocence often did with people. She explained that he had made a fool of her and pulled the wool over her eyes. As her brother, the big brother that protected her, I felt angry. I wanted to kill him, but I could never do that. No matter how angry I was, taking the life of another human was not something I could ever bring myself to do.

The chain of events that followed happened slowly, with a lot of thought put into them. Sophie and I concocted a plan to ensure that Colin Coyle would face justice for his crime. We knew that his friend had used a burner phone to provide Colin with an alibi, a burner phone that was submitted into evidence on the last day of the court case. A burner phone that he specifically kept hidden until the end to give Sophie a reason to still believe him as the evidence stacked against him. We knew that he was at the scene of the crime, and we knew that he was the one who delivered the final blow to Taylor Biggs. Sophie was adamant that she couldn't live with herself knowing that she had caused this level of injustice, and as her brother, I knew I had to help her.

Colin Coyle was a local thug and a very well-respected thug in the area. He was the type of person you smiled at in the street while calling him every name under the sun in your head. He was the type of man who, if he came knocking on your door with instructions, you followed them for fear of what he could do next. The side of himself that he presented to Sophie was that of someone who had been dreadfully misjudged. He told her of his hard upbringing and of his absent mother. He told her about his kids and how important they were to him. It was almost as if he had studied her from afar before he approached her to take on the case, knowing her weaknesses: people who had been disowned at some point by their mothers, and people who knew fathers who loved their children and didn't want to miss out on their lives.