Page 6 of Cuts Like an Angel: Part 2

When he opened the door to the room, his heart skipped for a moment at the vision of the empty bed. "Rosie?" The relieving sound of the running water answered him from the small bathroom. Thank God.

"I got us something to eat," he said when she came out of the bathroom ten minutes later, one towel wrapped around her body and the other wrapped around her hair.

"Oh great,” she beamed. “I'm starving.”

"And tired too?"

"Knackered," she laughed as she climbed onto the bed, sitting with her feet hanging down off the edge of it. William brought the tray over and placed it on the bed with her. "Thank you."

"Rosie ..."

She looked at him, waiting for him to speak, but his words caught. He wanted to ask if she was all done with in the States. If everything was finished and final and that she wouldn't have to go back, but then the words wedged in his throat, too thick and too hard for him to say in case she said no, she wasn’t done. In case she only came here to pack up her shit and go home. Why ruin it with his stupid thoughts now?

"William?" she said when he hadn't spoken.

"Nothing." He reached over to the plate and took a cracker for himself. Suddenly his hunger had subsided. That was what he got when he let his mind think. Big mistake. He knew that. And he tried to calm his stupid mind. What had Carly said to him? Look for the other answers? It was so damn hard, though.

How could he battle William's convincing, she's just here to pack up and leave, against Josh's more logical, she came back and wouldn't have called every damn day if she wasn't planning to stay? Plus, her suitcase was bigger than the one she had left with. She had brought stuff to England.

... but maybe that was more bags inside to take stuff home.

He pushed himself off the bed with a humph.

"William?"

"I'm fine," he snapped, not meaning to, but the fight in his mind was all too consuming, and he wasn’t sure which way his mind was about to take him. He was sinking, fast. "Sorry." He held his hands up, paced over to the window and stared out into the night. People down there who were so sure of everything. They knew what they wanted and it would never leave them.

"William, talk to me," Rosie said from bed, setting the tray aside. She held her hand out, motioning for him to come, and sit with her.

He couldn't, though. He couldn't be so close and know she might go. William was winning. "Why are you here?" he asked. "Why did you come back?"

The hurt that flashed across her face lanced through him, but he needed to know—he wanted to know. He couldn't have this shit hanging over him if she was just going to get him home and then say she was leaving.

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