Page 39 of Butterfly

And afterwards…

Ollie shook his head; he didn’t want to talk about that.

Teddy wrapped a hand around the back of Ollie’s neck and squeezed.

“I’m not as innocent as you think I am.”

He knew what people thought; he’d murdered his abusive father to protect his brother.

And that was partly true.

Partly.

“You don’t know me.”

Teddy’s nostrils flared; there was a warning in his eyes.

Ice sharpened Ollie’s words. “Well, you don’t.”

It wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision that night. Ollie had been thinking about it for days, weeks, months, years even. He sat in class and fantasised about killing his father not only on the days he was beaten, but on the days he wasn’t, the good days where his father apologised and promised he’d do better.

He’d thought about it when he left school and got a job too, mind awash with murder during the quiet times in the shop.

The knife…not stopping until he was certain his father was dead.

What kind of person filled their head with thoughts like that?

Not a nice one, that was for sure.

Teddy shook him lightly. His kind gaze said,You are.

“I’m not,” Ollie blurted.

Tears burned his eyes.

You are.

Ollie sank into the hug Teddy offered him, knowing he didn’t deserve it but unable to resist.

6

Forthefirsttimein months, Ollie dreamed of his father. He didn’t yell, hurl bottles or grab him as Ollie tried to rush by; he smiled. It was a real smile; it was a smile absent of anger and malice, and Olliehatedit.

It flipped his stomach. It lifted the weight of the world from Ollie’s shoulders. It said there was still hope, that his father was stillhimdeep down and everything would be okay.

He’d always been a heavy drinker and an argumentative man, but it got worse when Ollie’s mother packed her bags and left.

The drinking lost his father his job, isolated him from his friends, robbed him of all the joy in his life. At first, others tried to intervene; they tried to help, but his father made it clear he didn’t want it.

People found him too stressful to deal with, so they cut him out of their lives. Even his brother, Ollie’s uncle Asher, abandoned him after a wine bottle was thrown at his head.

Asher had gone to hospital that night for stitches. Ollie had sat at the top of the stairs and heard Asher tell his father that the only reason he hadn’t gone to the police over the incident was because of Ollie and Leo.

Ollie wondered how differently his life might have turned out if he had, if he and Leo had been taken away from the start.

As a nine-year-old, the thought had terrified him.

He’d run downstairs crying, hugged his father and begged Asher not to have him arrested, not to have people come round and separate him from his baby brother.

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