My Friend is Friends with my Rapist

As many of you on here know, I was raped a little over 8 years ago. It’s been a struggle every day but I’m a survivor and am doing my best to move on with my life and make the best of things. But right now I’m having a really hard time and here’s why:
I recently (about a 1 ½ years ago) moved back to Chicago. This is my home, where I grew up. I had not lived here since I was 18 (the time of my rape). It was weird because for the past 5 years or so before I came back I had not thought about the rape too much. I wasn’t around the place that it happened (my parents’ house) and I wasn’t around the people that were there (my high school friends). So for the time period that I lived away from home I was able to move on and not totally forget about it but put it out of my mind a bit.
Now I’m back here and I’ve been thinking about it a lot more. I burst into tears about it for no reason when I’ve been drinking sometimes. I’ve told a lot more people about the incident than I ever intended to. Part of it could be because it’s been 8 years and I’m finally ready to talk about it. But I think a lot of it has to do with because I’m back here.
The biggest issue for me, however, is that I was raped by someone I know and someone my friends know. We had hooked up a few times before my rape, and he was in my circle of friends in high school. So talking about it around them has always been a tricky situation. Thankfully, he’s since fallen out of favor with most of my friends since high school. It’s not because I’ve told them about the rape (a lot of them don’t know, only the ones I’m really close with) but because he’s an overall douchebag (surprise surprise).

So anyway I haven’t seen him since I’ve moved back, thank goodness, but one of my oldest friends is (I’ll just call him “R” for Rapist) R’s biggest supporter basically. It’s very complicated but this friend of mine knows about the rape. He knows it was R that did it. He knows every detail. He was also the one that told me that R did this same thing to another girl. So why is he still friends with R? I’ve known this guy for almost 10 years now (he’s actually an ex-boyfriend) and he’s always been the sweetest guy. But obviously this is something that makes my blood boil and lately every time we see each other (which has been really rare because I’m very angry with him because of his friendship with R) we get into these screaming matches about the whole thing and I end crying and he ends up walking away.
Our latest blow up happened this past weekend when we went out to celebrate my birthday which is tomorrow. We were drinking and I forget how the topic of R even came up but it did and so it started again. My friend went on about how R was “his boy” and how he’s always been there for him in instances where I have not. Last year my friend had a drug problem that R apparently helped him through. I said that wasn’t fair because I didn’t even know about the drug problem because he was lying to me about it (as most addicts do). And besides, R was the one that got him hooked on cocaine in the first place (like I said, R’s a real winner). The fight escalated from there. I yelled about how it didn’t matter. R raped me and if my friend cared he would stop talking to him or at least act like he gave a shit. But the fact that he always talked about how great R was felt like a slap in the face. My friend went on to say that he wasn’t there that night that it happened so he doesn’t know who to believe because I guess R has told him a different story. So I said that he was basically saying I was lying about being raped and that really hurt. That’s I think when I started crying. I’m not sure.
Anyway, I was drunk so I don’t remember it all. But it sucked. The whole thing sucks. This guy is one of my oldest friends but I can’t stand this. What am I supposed to do? I feel like lately he’s just getting annoyed with how much I talk about the rape (I actually feel like that’s happening with a few of my friends), but like I said, since I’ve been back it’s been on my mind more and I just feel the need to talk about it. I’ve never talked to a therapist about the whole thing which is probably something I should do but I don’t have the money for that at the moment (or the time to be honest). I think he thinks I’m doing it sometimes for attention. God, I’d do anything to never have this kind of attention, trust me! But what kind of person is friends with their friend’s rapist?!?!