Page 60 of Cuts Like An Angel: Part 3

William slowed the car as he turned onto their street and the headlights of his car lit up the road. The road where they lived was normally quiet. No one ever parked in anyone else’s spot because they had driveways and because the place had enough space to even accommodate visitors, but the headlights lit up a car parked where William would park his if he was leaving it on the street.

“Is there …”

Rosie shifted in her seat, easing her legs uncrossed and her arms down.

William’s nerves were a bunch of electrified wires in his body and he flexed his fingers to try to ease it.

“Oh. God …” Rosie put her hand over her mouth as they approached the house. The car parked outside was white with a green logo on the side with the rental company’s name in big letters.

“Please …” she said.

William would have begged himself if he’d have thought it would do any good. He pulled around the car and reversed onto the driveway. Then he cut the engine, and Rosie and William sat together, not speaking, but not because of before. No. Because of the big and bold car parked right in front of them.

Rosie’s hand slipped into his. Whether she did it unknowingly, or because she needed comfort more than anything, William didn’t know. But he grabbed her hand and squeezed her fingers in his.

“I wish they would leave me alone.”

He thought to tell her it might not be them, but who would he be kidding? Himself? He wished they’d leave her alone too. He wished everyone would just evaporate and only them two existed and they’d have none of the problems bubbling under his armour. “We should go inside,” he said, sighing.

“Can we just drive and leave? Go find a hotel or something?” Rosie was staring at the car too. Like it might grow wings and teeth and come and attack them. The attack was likely, claws and teeth, but they would be the mothers sitting in the house, waiting.

If the idea of a hotel was a good one, he’d have pulled the car right out then and driven back to the city and not stopped until they got there, but the chance of Rosie’s parents coming and finding them there or waiting until they came back was too big. “They’ll not leave until they have seen you,” he said. The radio blared as they both sat there. It was beginning to feel loud, penetrating and pressing on William’s hearing, but he didn’t want to reach over and turn it off. They were in a cocoon in this car. They were safe from the monsters in the house. In the car, his mother didn’t exist, neither did hers. It was just the two of them.

Rosie let go of his hand. Not to push him away, but so she could lean forwards in her seat and put her head in her hands. She muttered something, but William couldn’t make it out. He rested a hand on her back. Whatever she was saying, they would be echoes of his own complaints.

“Maybe we should just go and get this over with?” he said.

“It’s never going to be over with,” Rosie said, her voice strained. “Nothing with them will ever be over and done with.”

“We’ll go in together, like we agreed with my mother. United front. Me and you.”

Rosie raised herself enough to look at him and he saw in her eyes the Rosie he loved. The good and kind Rosie who got him the way no one else did and he knew he’d been a fool. Wrapped up in his own perspective of the world and forgetting who Rosie was and what she was like. Then he did want to say he was sorry. “Are we a united front?” she asked. “Are you and me a we? A team like before?”

She wasn’t crying as such, but her eyes were wet around the edges and a couple of tears escaped, rolling down her face and reaching all the way into his guilty heart. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to ruin the evening.”

She nodded and sighed at the same time. She placed her cold hand against his cheek. “Will you talk to me after? When they’re gone and this is done with? Will you talk to me and tell me whatever it is? If you have secrets, they’ll fester for me. I’ll make them into something more than they are. My head is already worrying you’ve got sick of me and found someone else.”

“I’d never … no. Rosie …” His stomach clenched.

“I know. I …”

He kissed her. Soft lips against his. He sucked in a breath as he held her and screwed his eyes closed. He’d been an idiot. “There’s only you … only ever you. We’ll talk. I don’t mean to …”

“Shush …” she said against his mouth. “When they’re gone. Okay?”

He nodded. He laced his fingers through hers and grounded himself right in the place he belonged. With Rosie … the team getting ready for their big game. Going up against the deathly opposing team.

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