Page 40 of Butterfly

Asher had left.

Everybody left.

The drinking got worse, and so did the abuse. It started as shoves and pushes, small acts of violence that could’ve been explained away asaccidents.

Then the narrative changed from accidents to corrective behaviour.

A smack, a slap, a hissed ‘anyone can do it’ when he was trying to cook dinner, but the pan had boiled over. His father didn’t care that he was failing every lesson at school, but he did care when Ollie forgot to take the bins out for the Thursday collection.

He needed to learn, and pain was the obvious go-to for his father.

Ollie deserved the blows; he needed to do better, cook better, clean better, take care of Leo better. He needed to get better, but no matter what he did, it was never enough. He could never stop his father from hurting him.

The only person who could was his father himself.

And hedid.

The abuse came in waves, and then some epiphany would enlighten his father.

He’d vow to get better, ditch the booze and focus on being the best father he could be. And the bittersweet to Ollie’s life was he could do it.

Hedidit.

He was a good father for a quarter of the year, and a terrible one for the rest.

His father would get a job, sometimes even a girlfriend, and for a little while, things would be good. In the week Ollie killed his father, he’d just ditched the booze, dramatically loading it into bin bags and taking them outside. He’d smiled. Leo had smiled. But Ollie hadn’t.

Even when his father had pulled him into a hug and told him things would be differentthistime, the evil in their lives was the booze, not him, Ollie was numb.

Everyone in the prison seemed to know why he was inside, but he’d only ever told one person about what he’d done.

And that was Rory.

But he’d still twisted the truth.

Twisted it out of fear Rory would see him differently.

He killed his father when he was sleeping, defenceless, oblivious.

The way he’dplannedto.

Maybe it was cowardly, but Ollie hadn’t wanted to wait until morning.

He hadn’t wanted to see another smile or another bottle top being flicked off by his father’s thumb.

It had to be then.

He stabbed his father twenty times. It had been bloody, and brutal, and thesoundhad stayed with him.

Halfway through, he closed his eyes and sealed his lips shut as he kept stabbing. It felt like an out-of-body experience. He didn’t feel like Oliver Linton anymore. Something unhinged had grown inside him, and he’d finally let it out.

The smell of blood had been thick in the air. It was warm as it dripped from Ollie’s skin, but he still shivered.

He’d finally done it.

He’d killed him.

It took him forever to realise Leo stood in the bedroom doorway. He was screaming, dropping to his knees, but the sound seemed so far away, so unimportant.

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