Page 102 of Butterfly

“My curfew ends this week, anyway.”

Rory closed the door behind them. “You said you wouldn’t look.”

“Ah, so you’ve spoken to Captain… You made it sound like there was something to see. I had to.”

“And how do you feel now you’ve…read what happened?”

“Awful…disgusted…confused. I don’t believe the Teddy I know is capable of that.”

“You didn’t knowthatTeddy.”

“It was cruel, vindictive, evil in a way that he just isn’t.”

“He looked like you,” Rory said. “Gary, I mean, he looked like you. I looked Teddy up as soon as I got out, and that stuck in my mind. I was worried about you in there with him, but Sebastian said he wouldn’t hurt you. He’d been inside a long time, and most of it was spent on the same wing with Teddy. He said he got on with his cellmates. He never hurt them.”

“What about Ryan?”

“Sebastian says that was a rumour started by Pauly. He doesn’t believe it.”

“I want to ask Teddy about it. And I want him to look me in the eye and tell me that those things I read about him are true.”

“Tell him that. In your next letter, tell him.”

“We both know he won’t reply. He won’t let me visit him.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

Sometimes you know, and you’ll do everything to keep that person in your life.

It wasn’t meant to be.

Theyweren’t meant to be.

“I’m going to let him go.”

Rory widened his eyes.

“I’m going to let him go to give myself the chance of finding someone who will feel for me the same way I do for them. Against all odds. I want what you and Sebastian have, and I thought… I thought I could have a piece of that with Teddy. I would’ve been happy with apiece, but now…one more letter to say goodbye.” Ollie nodded to himself. “Just one more.”

17

IttookOllieafew attempts to write the last letter.

Hurt, frustration, and repulsion all had to be worked out of his system first.

He scrunched up each attempt and threw them in the bin by the door.

After a calming breath, he felt ready. He put his pen to the paper and wrote his last words to Teddy.

He didn’t ask why he had never written back.

He didn’t tell Teddy he’d read about his crime and wanted to know whether it was all true.

He didn’t ask about Gary or Ryan or whether he’d been Teddy’s messed-up way of righting the horror of what he’d done to end up in Hollybrook.

Instead, Ollie thanked him.

He wrote tohisTeddy, not the one from before who’d killed in cold blood, and not the one from after who’d ignored his efforts to keep in touch.

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