“Fuck, no, I’m not okay,” he hisses, his voice muffled behind his hand.
“What the hell is going on in here?” Dad yells, busting in the room.
I jump as the door slaps against the wall and bounces back.
“Dad—”
“What happened?” Dad demands and it’s then when I notice he’s got a gun drawn.
Oh shit.
“Dad! Put the gun away!”
“Well, fuck, Lyla! I thought something happened to you. Why’d you scream?”
“I accidentally hurt, Thomas.”
“Ac-ac-ac-ac-,” he stops talking. I heard the pain and frustration when he can’t get the word he wants out and I feel so guilty that I bite my lip to keep from begging him to forgive me. What the hell is wrong with me? He’s the reason we’re in this mess.
“It was!” I defend because I know what he was trying to say. I also know for his stutter to be this bad, he has to be really upset.
“What the fuck did you do to her?” Dad thunders out, looking at Thomas like he wants to kill him—and he probably does. I also notice that he hasn’t put the gun up.
“Dad! The gun!” I huff. Dad makes a gruff noise that sounds like a bear, but puts the gun away.
“I want to know what the fuck he did to make you bust his nose,” he rumbles, his voice full of anger and irritation.
“I didn’t bust his nose,” I deny. “Did I?” I look back over my shoulder at Thomas, worried now that it’s mentioned.
“Just f-f-fucked up my eye,” Thomas mutters.
He drops the butterfly statue onto the bed and my gaze locks on it before I force myself to look at his face.
“Oh no,” I whisper, physically sick to my stomach.
“Damn, Lyla, it looks like you punched the fucker with brass knuckles,” Dad murmurs, letting out a long whistle.
“Thomas, I… I didn’t mean it…”
“G-g-gonna g-g-get some ice,” he mumbles, and he doesn’t even look at me as he leaves the room.
“Shit,” I hiss, sitting down on the bed, feeling my adrenaline crash. I pick up the butterfly, staring at it and just feeling completely sad.
“What’s going on, Butterfly?” Dad asks, sitting down on the bed beside me. His hand goes on my knee and I look down at the ink covering it and smile. He’s not a conventional father and yeah, I’ve never been first in his life, but he’s always made time for me and when the chips were down, he was the first one there to take care of me. I’d be lost without him.
“I threw this at him, but I didn’t mean to hurt him.”
“Lyla,” Dad half laughs, effectively calling me on my bullshit.
“You’ll find out when you have your baby. We go a long way to shield them from pain. I never wanted you to be hurt by Sherry. That’s why I tried to keep you away from her so much.”
“I seem to have a habit of loving people that are meant to do nothing but cause me pain.”
“Like T-Boy.”
“That really is a horrible name, Daddy. You should be better to him,” I chastise.
“He hurt my baby,” Dad shrugs, like that explains it all. I guess to him, it does. “If he wants a better name, and he sticks around, he’ll have to earn it.”