Page 36 of Cuts Like An Angel: Part 3

“Maybe you could be friends now?” She had a sparkle in her eyes as she said it, and the sight made him smile. He wished sometimes he could bottle up the enthusiasm she had for things, and the belief that life was always good.

“Did you have a best friend at school? All girls have those, right?”

And the spark went out, so quickly. She lowered her cup and wiped at the orange mark across her lip where the soup had touched her skin. He thought for a moment he’d said the wrong thing and she was going to close down on him.

“I was always the weird one at school,” she said. “Though I had friends, but never best friends. I got my first boyfriend when I was fourteen, but that was it.”

“Boyfriend?” William raised his eyebrow mocking her and cocked a smile, but he dropped it when he saw the look she gave him. Something sad inside her too. “A bad boyfriend?”

“Not bad. Not really.” She chewed on the inside of her cheek, something she did when she was feeling shy and it made him press her closer, trying to let her know that whatever it was, it was okay. “He worked with my dad. Maybe boyfriend isn’t the right word. I was fourteen and he was forty-five. He worked as an assistant and sat in on the meetings and things like that.” She looked down at her hands. “He was married too. They had a child. Kind of makes me as bad as your mother.” She mumbled the last part.

But William caught what she said and lifted her face. She had to look at him. “You are nothing like my mother. You were fourteen?”

Innocent eyes darted, searching his face. He wanted to kiss her right then and tell her it was fine. He could feel her tremble a little against him, and he was sure it was a shiver from the cold.

“I thought I was something special. He said I was. He said I was all grown up. He said his wife didn’t understand him, but I did. He even told me they had separate rooms and hadn’t had sex in two years.”

William stayed where he was, holding himself, but inside his stomach was in a knot and the word fourteen pulsed around in his brain.

“Stupid, right?” she said, clearly oblivious to what William was thinking. “All married men throw that line. Like anyone believes it, but I was fourteen and I thought I was in love. Turns out, I just wanted attention and he gave it to me. He just wanted sex.” She pulled her knees back up and William pulled her closer, so her head went under his chin. He could feel her breath against his neck. “He got me pregnant,” she whispered. “Told me I had to get rid of it because if it was his, we’d both get sent to prison for it.”

“He’d be the only one who’d have gone to prison.”

He felt her nod against him. “I know that now, but at that age … I believed what he said.”

“The baby in that picture.”

“She was ours. Mine … I …” Her voice cracked with it and she pressed herself tighter into herself. It made William hold her more. He wanted to cocoon her, to keep her safe from all the shit in the world, all the men like that. Even the ones in the past.

“It wasn’t your fault. None of it was.”

She didn’t answer him. Just leant against him as if she couldn’t quite muster the energy to move. That was fine with him. He liked to sit holding her and just look out across the water.

“Sorry,” she said, when several more minutes passed. “I know this isn’t what you had in mind when you wanted to come out here. I’m not meant to be a blubbering mess.”

“Oh, Rosie … this is exactly what I want. You, me, us. We have things, past things, things that hurt us, things that we keep secret. I’m not just with you for the goods parts only.”

She nodded. Whether she believed him or not, he wasn’t sure. He liked to tell himself she did.

“I ran away from home not long after that. Got a job working in a bar even though I was underage. But they paid me cash and it got me a small place to live.”

“Did you never tell your parents about him. With the baby and all that?”

She wriggled to get out of his embrace so she could look up at him. The look she gave him filled his body with rage for those who had hurt her. He was almost afraid to hear what she was about to say, but he made himself meet her eyes.

“I told my mother, but she didn’t believe me. She said I must have led him on or something like that. She said men like him would never have sex with someone like me and if I wasn’t careful with what I said to people, I’d end up locked in some mental place for having hallucinations and flights of fancy.” She snorted a laugh at the last part. “Flights of fancy, can you imagine? I mean I was flattered. I was a kid and there was this man telling me how smart I was, how beautiful I was and how much better than his wife I was. He said I understood things about him she would never get. Flights of fancy … turns out I was just an idiot.”

“No, Rosie,” William said. “He was the idiot. Not you. Never you.” He moved so she could sit between his legs and he could hold her there. He needed to feel like he was protecting her, even if these things were gone now. She let him move her and they both stared out towards the water, picking at the salad she’d made them.

“Do you hate me now?” she asked, holding herself tight. But William stretched around her so he could hold her completely.

“I could never hate you.” He kissed the side of her neck, warm skin against his mouth, and when he breathed her in, she arched to meet him, giving him access to her. “I do hate you have work soon, though. I could sit here all day.”

“Me too.” She twisted so she could reach his face, her light hand against his stubbled cheek. “I love you, William.”

He flinched for a second, his reply lodged in his throat, in his chest, and all he could managed to whisper was, “I know.”

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