Butterfly (29 page)

‘Well, you took any choice away
from me, didn’t you? Just like Theo did.’

He takes a step back as if I’ve
physically hit him.

‘You need to get out,’ I scream.
‘I can’t be around you. You should’ve told me this in the
beginning, before…’ I can’t even say the words, but I think
them.

Before I fell in love with
you.

‘I thought I knew you, but I
don’t. I don’t know you at all,’ I spit out. ‘Everything has been a
lie from the very beginning.’

He flinches.

‘What, was I just some pet
project to you? Someone you could rescue to try to make yourself
feel better? Some twisted experiment to try to redeem yourself for
what you did? Is that what we were?’ I clench my fists at my side,
my heart beating erratically.

‘No! It was never—’

‘I gave you my heart. I slept
with you! After everything that happened, do you know how much it
took for me to do that? I let my guard down with you because I
trusted you! Do you know how that makes me feel?’ I clench my head
in my hands. ‘You wormed your way into my life for some sick
purpose to make yourself feel better. And it was all a
charade.’

‘Not everything was a lie. Not
how I feel about you. That was never a lie. You have to believe me.
Please, Grace, I didn’t want to fall in love with you. I just
wanted to—’

‘Believe you? How can I believe
anything you say anymore?’ I hold my hand up to cut him off. ‘I
can’t trust you to tell me the truth. Just get out, Ben!’ My voice
comes out hard as steel, like a lethal punch.

A guttural cry rumbles deep
within him, and I see the raw pain in his eyes. He’s still. So
still, it’s as if the life has been sucked right out of him.
‘Grace—’

‘Just go!’ I’m suddenly
overwhelmingly exhausted. Don’t know how much more I can take.

He hesitates, and I think for a
minute he’s going to stay, make this harder, but he doesn’t.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for
any of this to happen.’ His voice trembles as he gives me one last
broken look. ‘None of it.’

He walks through the door, out
of my life, and takes my heart with him.

My head spins. I can’t take it
all in. Everything I thought he was has been a lie. He
killed
someone. How could he do that?

I wipe away the tears roughly
and phone Lisa. I really need to talk to someone, and she’s all I
have. If I don’t talk, I’m going to fall apart. Splinter into a
million pieces.

She answers on the second ring.
‘Hi, Grace, are you OK? It’s a bit late.’

I take a huge sniff. ‘Is it?’ I
glance at the clock. It’s ten p.m. Where did that time go? ‘Shit,
I’m sorry. I’ll ring you tomorrow.’

Lisa must be able to hear I’ve
been crying hard. My nose is bunged up, my voice croaky. ‘No, it’s
OK,’ she says. ‘What’s wrong? You sound awful.’

‘I really need to talk to
you.’

She doesn’t question me. Doesn’t
ask why. ‘Do you want to come round?’

I grab a napkin from the table
and wipe my nose. ‘Are you sure it’s not too late?’

‘No, I’ve got to give Leila a
feed anyway. By the time you get here, I’ll be done, OK?’

‘Thanks, Lisa.’

‘No problem, hon. See you
soon.’

I hang up and go into the toilet
to wash my face, trying to get rid of the streaked mascara. By the
time I lock up, my eyes are so puffy and bloodshot I can hardly
see. I don’t trust myself to drive with my hands shaking so much,
so I walk the few miles. Every step taking me further away from Ben
and closer to who knows where.

When I get to Lisa’s, she opens
the door, and her eyes widen with sympathy. ‘Oh, my God, Grace,
what’s happened?’ She pulls me into a big hug. ‘Is it Ben? Have you
had a row?’

‘Is Jack here?’ I take a huge
sniff.

‘No, he’s on the late shift
tonight. He won’t be back until about one. We’ve got the place to
ourselves for a few hours, but he can give you a lift home later if
you like. You don’t look in any fit state to drive.’

I nod as she pats my back. ‘I
walked here.’

‘Come on.’ Lisa leads me into
the lounge. ‘Do you want a drink?’

‘Yeah. Something strong.’

She gives me a worried frown.
‘I’ve got whiskey or brandy if you want that?’

‘Brandy sounds good.’ I try to
muster up a smile, but it’s not working. Don’t know if it will ever
work again. I kick off my shoes and sink onto the sofa, bringing my
knees to my chest and hugging them.

‘Here.’ Lisa hands me a tumbler
with two inches of amber liquid in it. She sits next to me, tucks
her legs underneath her, and waits for me to start talking.

I swallow a large gulp. The
alcohol burns my throat as I stare at the carpet, savouring the
pain. ‘I was raped.’

‘Oh my God!’ Her hands fly to
her cheeks. Whatever she was expecting me to say, it wasn’t that.
‘By Ben?’

‘No. It was my ex. It happened a
little while before you started working at the shop.’

‘I’m so sorry that happened to
you, Grace.’ She scoots closer to me and puts her arm round me. ‘I
had an idea that some guy had hurt you in the past, but I didn’t
know it was as bad as that. I thought maybe he’d cheated on you or
something, and you were having a hard time getting over it.’

‘I couldn’t tell you then, Lisa.
I hardly knew you. It’s not like you can say, “Hi, my name’s Grace.
Nice to have you working here, oh, and, by the way, I was raped.”
And I couldn’t even admit it or deal with it myself. I thought it
was my fault, you see. And then you found out you were pregnant,
and I could never put all this vileness on you.’

‘But you’re telling me now,’ she
says softly, stroking my hair. ‘And you’re here late at night,
upset, wanting to talk, so I’m guessing something’s happened now to
change things?’

‘Ben happened.’ I swirl the
brandy in my glass. ‘I was a mess after the rape. I was scared all
the time. I couldn’t sleep. I had nightmares about it. The only
time I felt relatively normal was at work, like I could put this
mask on when I was there.’ I take a sip from the glass. Swallow
slowly. ‘I wasn’t coping very well, even though I tried to hide it
from the rest of the world.’

‘Well, I’d say you were pretty
good at hiding it. I didn’t notice all that. God, I’m a useless
friend.’ She shakes her head.

‘I wanted help. I knew I needed
to talk about it all, but I just couldn’t pluck up the strength to
do it. And then I met Ben when he had that car accident.’

‘Yeah, I remember.’

‘He saw me freak out with a
panic attack that first day when we had the water leak in the
kitchen. But instead of thinking I was a completely insane, he
actually knew what it was and how to deal with it.’ I take a deep
breath. ‘It was weird, considering what had happened to me, and how
I didn’t want to be around men, but I trusted him almost straight
away. There was something about him that felt…easy, safe,
gentle.’

‘I know what you mean. He is
like that.’

‘And I knew he was a counsellor,
so I thought maybe he could help me. He’d already seen me freaking
out. He knew I was hiding it, but he didn’t say anything. And he
told me about his sister who’d been raped. He said he’d never told
anyone about it before, because she didn’t want anyone to know. She
killed herself afterwards because she couldn’t cope with what
happened.’

‘Bloody hell.’ Lisa bites her
lip. ‘We live in such a horrible world. That’s horrific.’

‘He told me that was why he
became a counsellor, to try and help other rape victims, because he
wasn’t able to help Mia.’

‘That sounds incredibly
compassionate of him.’

I shrug. ‘So, that’s how it
started. We talked, and I poured my heart out. He was supportive
and gave me things to try to help me heal. He started making me
change the way I thought and how I felt. He made me stronger
again.’

‘He didn’t “make” you do those
things. He just gave you the tools to use so you could heal
yourself,’ Lisa says. ‘Like any good counsellor should.’

‘Well, either way. I was getting
better because of him. He gave me the tools to get my life back,
Lisa. In fact, he gave me a new life. One where it actually felt
good to be alive. And then…’ I trail off and take a final swig of
brandy.

‘And then you fell in love with
each other?’ Lisa prompts me.

‘Yes.’

‘Do you want another drink?’ She
nods to the empty glass.

‘Yes, please.’ I hand it to
her.

When she returns with another
measure, I cup the glass to my chest. ‘He was hiding something from
me, though. When he told me what happened to his sister, he didn’t
tell me the whole story.’ I take a deep breath as the weight of
emotions press down on me: sadness, loss, love, betrayal, but most
of all anger that everything I thought he was has been a lie.

‘What is the whole story?’ she
asks.

I tell her everything Ben told
me tonight. When I’m done, I put the empty glass on the floor and
wipe away the tears stinging my eyes.

Her eyes shine with unshed
tears, and shock is plastered all over her face. ‘If I was Ben, I
would’ve wanted to kill that bastard, too!’

‘But would you, really, though?
It’s a different thing, being so angry you
feel
like you
want to kill someone, but actually doing it? That’s something else
entirely.’

‘When Theo raped you, did you
want to kill him? I want to kill him, now I’ve heard what you told
me.’

‘No, that was the weird thing. I
couldn’t get angry enough with him because I was locked into so
much shame and guilt, I thought it was my fault.’

‘But Ben didn’t mean to do it.
I’d say it took an amazing amount of strength and self-control for
him not to kick the shit out of him as soon as he saw him. But he
didn’t. He kept walking, and it wasn’t until Mia’s rapist actually
rubbed Ben’s nose in it that he snapped. Shit, Grace, it was an
accident. It was one punch that went horribly wrong. A tragic
accident that could happen to anyone—even you or me.’ She stands
up. ‘God, I seriously need a drink now, too.’ She takes my glass
into the kitchen and comes back with another brandy and a glass of
red wine. I twist in the cushions so we’re facing each other, knees
to knees.

‘What if there was a guy in the
street mugging you,’ Lisa says, ‘and you were trying to hold onto
your bag, struggling. Say you pushed him. He falls over, hits his
head, and dies. Would that be your fault?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know what
to think anymore.’ I rub my hand across my forehead.

‘No, it wouldn’t be your fault.
And I don’t think this is Ben’s fault, either. He didn’t
mean
to kill him. He was twenty years old at the time. He’d
been drinking and probably wasn’t thinking straight. He was
grieving for his sister and feeling guilty that he couldn’t protect
her. And then her rapist gets in his face and brags about it, and
he just snaps. I’m not saying what happened wasn’t horrific, but he
didn’t intend to kill him. He just snapped and made a bad decision.
It was a mistake that had tragic consequences.’ She puts her hand
on my shoulder. ‘Grace, I’ll tell you something that I’ve only ever
told Jack.’ She hesitates and swallows some wine. ‘When I was
fifteen, I got pregnant and had an abortion.’

I gasp. It’s my turn to reach
out with comfort now and I squeeze her hand. ‘That must’ve been so
hard. I’m really sorry.’

She squeezes back. ‘So am I. I
was young and stupid. It was a mistake that also had tragic
consequences. A few moments in my life that meant I was ever going
to be the same again. But I was too young to have it. I couldn’t
look after myself properly at that age, let alone a baby. So I had
to make a choice. A really difficult choice, and I still think
about it, especially now, when I look at Leila and it reminds me
what might have been.’ She swallows a big gulp of wine. ‘There are
plenty of people out there who’d say that abortion is murder. That
I murdered someone, too.’

‘You did what you had to do at
the time.’

She shakes her head slowly.
‘Maybe I did, but it doesn’t make it easier. And is it really so
different to Ben?’

‘How can you compare an abortion
to killing an adult? It’s completely different!’ I say
incredulously.

‘Is it? Is it, really? Actually,
the only difference is I intended to abort my baby, which makes me
worse. Ben didn’t intend to kill Mia’s rapist.’ She squeezes my
arm. ‘Those few moments when something happens and your life
shatters and is never going to be the same again… they happened to
me, and I can’t change it now. They also happened to you, and they
happened to Ben. But does that really mean we’re not allowed to
move on? To heal? To get our lives back? Do we have to be punished
forever?’

I don’t answer. Don’t know the
answer. Can’t think straight.

She downs the rest of her wine.
‘What are you upset and angry with Ben for? The fact he did it, or
the fact he didn’t tell you he did it?’

I tuck my hair behind my ears.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. I don’t know what’s
real and what’s an illusion.’

‘You said to me that when you
met me, you couldn’t just say, “Hi, my name’s Grace, and I was
raped.” But it was exactly the same for him. He couldn’t announce
to you that he’d killed someone. How could he?’

‘But everything he told me is a
lie now.’

‘Really?’ Lisa raises her
eyebrow questioningly. ‘I don’t think so’

‘Well, yes. He—’

‘No, not everything is a lie,’
she cuts me off. ‘Are you the same person you were after you were
raped?’

‘No, thank God,’

‘And Ben’s not that same
twenty-year-old he was, either. He made a mistake, which, under the
circumstances, I can’t blame him for.’ She shakes her head
adamantly. ‘But he’s paid the price, and he’s turned his life
around. He’s used the horrendous experiences he’s gone through to
help other people.’ She pauses to let it sink in. ‘To
help
people, Grace! I’d say he’s more than paid back for what he did.
He’s a good man, Grace. In fact, I’d go so far as to say he’s an
amazing man.’