Page 65 of Cuts Like an Angel: Part 2

Chapter Thirty-One

William

William had parked the car in the usual spot outside of the hospital, but he sat first, not sure if he wanted to go in, go home, or just run away from everything, including himself.

Rosie twisted in her seat, hand on the handle. “Are you coming?” she asked when he still hadn't moved.

“In a moment,” he said, looking out the windscreen at the people milling around—other people. People with flowers and bags. Gifts for their loved ones. Smiles and hope and wishes that whoever they were visiting would get better.

“We don’t have to go in if you don’t want to. We can go home.”

“We’re here now.”

“I know, but we don’t have to actually go in. We could go for coffee or something if you prefer?”

They had been decorating all day. Well, all day between fun and games and laughter. William almost getting carried away with the lightness that was Rosie. Imagining that maybe he could have something like that for himself, but it was a dream. All of it was and one moment he was going to wake up, spluttering, cold and not dead in the river again.

Maybe this was all a hallucination. A vicious, cruel glimpse at what he could have if he were real. He didn’t feel very real. He didn’t feel anything. Almost like he was an echo in his own mind and that he was moving slowly and everyone around him was going too fast. “Do you think if I wake up, you’ll be gone?” he mused absently, his eyes still focused on the people at the entrance.

“I’ll never be gone,” Rosie said, grabbing his hand. “Not even if you try to chase me away.”

“Maybe you will. Maybe one day, you’ll realise how bad I am and then you’ll leave.”

He had already started it with her, hadn't he? Only at the moment she thought that Maria was the one to blame. What would she do when she learned everything was his fault? All of it. Even the way Maria was fucked up was his doing.

And the stroke too ... His mind told him so, and although he tried to fight that away, he knew, deep inside. You take people flowers when they are sick. It makes them happier, but what had he done? He’d taken her a rose, that was for sure, but one he had known would send her mind into meltdown. Maybe he had done it with a hope of finishing her off. God knows, he was waiting for the call … or maybe he was praying for the call.

“Let’s go inside,” he said. “Before visiting is over and we miss it completely.” He snatched his hand back from Rosie’s, not meaning to do it so harshly. He went to apologise for it, but she was out of the car and closing the door so fast that he didn’t get the chance to.

The walk from the car to the ward was like what William imagined it would be if he was on death row, headed to the chair. Feet and legs moving them forward toward their final fate, while their mind screamed at them to stop and go back, but they can't. It was too late, and they were already on the burning path to their doom. Or maybe it was more like a calm walk. One where they had consolidated it all in their minds and accepted their fate. That’s what William really needed to do—accept his fate.

Maybe he should have been one of those people on death row, not that England had a death row any more, but they could make an exception for him. If the people in the hospital knew what a monster he was inside, they would surely lead him to the gallows and gut him; they would definitely not leave him alone with his mother.

Rosie clutched William’s hand as she stood by his side when they reached the door that led to the ward where Maria was resting. He didn’t push the button yet to ask to be let in, but just stared at the box like it was something he didn’t know what to do with it. “Do you think I am a bad person?” he asked, not actually looking at Rosie. He would rather hear the lie she told him, than see the truth reflected in her eyes.

“Why would I think that?” she asked, pulling him so that he had to look at her, her face filled with concern.

“Because I delayed coming here. Because I didn’t come yesterday after the store. Because I make her life miserable.” Just as I will do yours, he finished in his head. “Because I am me.” Because it is my damn fault that she is here to begin with. Because I hate her and I wanted her to die.

She reached up to the side of his face, such a gentle gesture that had his skin humming and his mind trying to rebuke. “Look at me,” she said, pulling him so that she could angle his face toward hers. “You are not terrible. Your mother is the bad one. The things she did …”

“I caused them.”

“No.”

“You don’t understand.” He shook his head at her. Poor sweet Rosie. No idea what monster she was trying to console. Before she could respond, he reached out and pushed the buzzer and waited as the distorted voice greeted him from the other side.

The ward was awake with life–sick life, but life. Nurses buzzed around the place answering patient calls and filling out charts. People walked, patients hobbled. It had the distinct scent of disinfectant and food–that warm gravy smell hospitals seemed to have.

“We can still go home if you want,” Rosie offered, her hand firm in his. She was like an anchor to the chaotic sea of his mind. “No one will think badly of you … I won’t think badly of you.”

Although William was sure that was true, and he nodded his agreement, he knew Maria would think badly of him. He would think badly too.

“We’re here now,” he said.

His mother’s room was now the one closest to the nurses’ station. Her door was open, which was strange. She never liked open doors. ’Were you born in a fucking barn?’ she would yell at him.

Once, and only once, he had told her that what she said didn’t make any sense, and that barns had doors. His cheek had stung for hours afterwards.

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