Page 62 of Cuts Like An Angel: Part 3

“The paperwork. The contracts … They were in here.”

She stared at him wide-eyed, all innocent. William held the papers in his hands and Rosie wished the crumpling pages were his mother.

“I do own the house,” he said to Rosie’s father. “Just because the paperwork isn’t here, doesn’t mean I can’t acquire it on Monday from my solicitor. He has a copy of the deeds.”

Rosie’s father rose from his seat. “When will you stop, Son? When will this be enough? Your mother told me about you. About your record … about how you drove your last girlfriend to kill herself.”

“My last …”

“Dad. Stop it,” Rosie said. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Maria smirked and it made Rosie’s blood boil, actually boil.

“He’s been lying to you,” Maria said. “He’s sick, in the head. He needs help. You didn’t tell her about Sam?

“William …” The room echoed around Rosie’s head like a beating of birds that wouldn’t come out. She focused on William and grabbed for him, as if he was the secure thing that would save her from going over the cliff. All of this was crap, lies … things invented by Maria and her parents … but the calls, the lies this evening. She raised her eyes to William and fought to see him there. Her eyesight felt like it was caught behind blurred glasses she couldn’t take off.

“Sam didn’t kill herself. She was sick …” William started to say.

“She was sick because of you,” Maria said. “You drove that girl to treating her body the way she did. You did that. And me … look at me? I’d not be like this if it wasn’t for you. You’ll screw this one up the same way. Just look at her.” Maria met Rosie’s eyes, and Rosie could swear the floor began to tilt. “Has he started to lie to you? Sneak off? Tell you he’s going to do something and come back hours later? You know he goes out when you’re working in the evenings, right?”

“You’re lying,” William said. “Rosie … I would …”

“Oh, he would. Don’t you believe it. But then, maybe you’re both suited to each other, Maria made a point of eyeing Rosie up and down. “You’ve got your own set of lies too, haven’t you, love?”

The sudden slap in the room startled everyone. And for a second Rosie wasn’t sure what had happened. She was standing right in front of Maria, their eyes locked.

The room froze, stuck in a warped world where Rosie had stepped up and not realised it. She held her hand back. Maria held a hand to her cheek as the two of them stared each other down.

“Get out,” Maria said. “Get out of my fucking house.”

Rosie’s hand trembled as she brought it down in front of her, holding it as if pain lanced through her bones. Vibrations ran along her skin, the stinging reminder of what she’d done and where her hand had connected with Maria’s face. Her chest ached with a stiffness she wasn’t sure she could shift. Slowly, she turned her head to look at William. Almost afraid to do so … to see the look on his face, the desire for her to leave, or the anger at what she had done to his mother. She didn’t want to see his mother’s wishes embedded in his eyes. That would be too much for her.

But his eyes were fixed on his mother, and any hatred he was feeling was directed at Maria. It still made a guilt knot in Rosie’s belly. If it wasn’t for her, this would not be happening.

But it would be … she tried to tell herself. Maria was the snake in his life long before Rosie came along.

She remembered the call, the desperation in his voice that first night.

“This is her home. She lives here,” William said.

The sound of Rosie’s pulse increased until it was on the verge of deafening, but it eased a little with William’s words.

“I think you both need to leave,” he said to her parents. “Rosie is not going anywhere, and it would do you well to not come back here with any more of this crazy talk. Rosie and I have no time for it, and anything you believe is nothing but my mother’s drunken delusions.”

“Drunken delusions?” Maria said. She squared her shoulders and looked right at Linda. “Do you see? This is what I mean …”

“It’s worse than I thought.”

“We aren’t leaving without our daughter,” Michael said.

William’s arm went across Rosie’s shoulders. She couldn’t stop herself shaking. He wasn’t, though. He pulled her back, so her back lay against his strong chest. She could feel his heart beating, and it was anything but the calm he was trying to portray, but oddly knowing that, made her feel stronger, made her feel better. “She has made it more than clear. She doesn’t want to go with you. Despite what my mother says, this is my house and you are not welcome in it. I suggest you leave.”

“You’re picking her over me?” Maria said, her eyes filled with tears, her nose had gone red, despite the fact her hand trembled, but it wasn’t fear in those eyes. Rosie was learning all this now. All those tells Maria had, she was putting the act on real fine this time. If anyone cared to look, they’d see the secret smile she was hiding, the way her lip curled at the edge … almost a sneer.

“This is my home,” Rosie said, mirroring what William had said just before. She raised her eyes to her parents. “I can’t stop you being in England, but I don’t have to see you, and I certainly won’t be coming with you. Not today, not tomorrow, not any day. So, you can either be here and we’ll pretend it’s a vacation for you both, or you can leave me and William alone. Either way, I don’t care.”

“This is what you’ve done to my daughter?” Michael said. “We didn’t raise her to be like this.” He glared right at Rosie, but she was stronger with William at her side. Her mother was beside Maria with her hand on the old witch, consoling her for what the evil daughter had done.

---