Page 2 of Cuts Like An Angel: Part 3

“Maybe. I just …”

The chair moved when she let go of him. She walked around his chair, tracing her fingers as she moved along his shoulders until she was standing in front of him. She pushed his chair back, so there was more room and rested against his desk. "Is it Maria?"

“Is it Maria keeping me up at four thirty in the morning when I’m so tired, I think I could sleep for a week? No. Absolutely not. I’ve not thought about her at all.”

"That means yes, then? We've got this," she said. "I promise. I know you don't think so, but we can do this together." She placed a hand against his face.

He wanted to believe her; he did. She had faith in herself and her ability to deal with the woman. But she didn't know Maria. She thought she did. She thought she knew what was coming, but she'd be nowhere close. He ran a hand along her arm, just needing to feel her there, to feel something more than the cracks in his chest. In his head, he was barely hanging on. One wrong move. He was all but ready to swan dive into the abyss of his fucked-up head and lose himself there. "Do you think I'm terrible? A horrible son?" It was one thought that had swum around his head all night. Every time he'd thought about his mother … his mother. Fucking hell … Maria, he'd tossed himself between the hatred of the child who remembered all the things she'd done, and the son … the one still hoping, still waiting for that slight edge that she might feel something for him.

“Terrible? Why would you be terrible?”

"She's my mother, and she needs my help. Every time I think about it, it makes every bone in my body ache. Like I want to do the opposite of help her. I’m meant to care for her. I’m meant to look after her.”

“You’re not terrible. The things she--”

“Maybe I overreact. Maybe it’s me who is …” He shoved the heel of his hand into his eye socket and pressed down until it was all he could feel, but Rosie grabbed him at the wrist and gently pulled his hand back.

“Look at me,” she said when he fought her. “William.”

A pause.

"We talked about this," Rosie said. She peered at him, and he let her move his hand from his face. “Don’t do this to yourself.”

A heaviness in his chest. A rip in his soul. “I know.” He nodded. “No guilt.”

“Nope. None whatsoever.” She pushed his arm to the side, stretching it out with the rows of scar upon scar. Her fingers were light against them, featherlike. “You look at these every time that voice starts in your head. You look at these and remind yourself why they’re there.”

“I did those.”

She arched a brow at him. It was meant to be menacing, but all it did was make her look so much more attractive to him. “But why did you do those? Why did you cut your skin?”

“Because I’m crazy.”

“Because you’re hurt. Inside.”

Scars marred the insides of both arms. Pain he’d used to relieve the pain inside, but below them, underneath all of that were the marks his mother had left. The scars no one but him could see. But there were physical scars too. Burns, cuts, all the times she’d beaten him.

Rosie slid herself off the desk and onto his lap so she could straddle him on the chair.

“Rosie …”

Her expression changed from that of telling him off to the loving, caring one he’d come to settle into. “I have faith in you, William. Even if you don’t have it in yourself. You’re stronger than you think, better than you give yourself credit for, and you deserve the world. I want that with you.”

She kissed him before he had time to deny her words. Before he had time to give her an excuse.

“What if I fuck up?” he said against her lips. “What if we have Maria here and it all goes wrong?”

Gentle hands, soothing. She stroked along the side of his face. “You won’t. Now, shut up and kiss me.” She pressed herself against him.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to distract you.”

“Maybe I’m not in the mood to be distracted.”

He breathed in the scent of her, felt her warmth, tasted her as he kissed her back. He nipped along her bottom lip, peppering her with kisses. She was a breath of fresh air in his clouded mind. Each time she was close to him, she seemed to settle something feral and broken. It was as though she could reach inside and handle his heart like someone holding a shattered piece of glass.

As he slid a hand around her back, splaying his fingers out at the centre of her shoulder blades, she slid her hand down his body, between them and into the front of his pants. “Are you sure? Your body seems to be saying otherwise.”

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