Page 8 of Cuts Like An Angel: Part 3

Chapter Five

William

The office computer always took its sweet time to load. Like it knew it was dying, so it plodded until the desktop was available. William waited by the window for it, staring at the normal world. He stretched his arms above his head and arched his back, cracking it with an audible pop. Rosie would have smacked him in the arm for it if she heard. He yawned and centred himself the way Carly had taught him. It worked most days, normal days. Not days in the run up to Maria coming home. Lately. The centring had little effect.

Talk of the devil, because right then, his phone buzzed into life and vibrated around his desk. Her name flashed across the screen, creating a knot in his already tense stomach—the scrolling definition of his mental demon. His shoulders sank, but still, he reached for the phone and clicked accept.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah? Is that any way to speak to your mother?” she shot at him.

He took in another calming breath, let it wash through his body and said nothing. He could either say what he thought, which would set her off even more, or he could lie, apologise to her and give her what she wanted. But he was damn sure the latter was never going to happen again. He set his mouth in a firm line to stop himself uttering his sorry.

“William, are you listening to me?”

“Yeah, I’m listening. What do you want?”

“What do I want? What … do … I … want? What’s wrong with you? I didn’t raise you to speak like that to people. You father’s genetics, that’s what that is. He was always rude too.” She paused as if she was waiting for him to say something else. When he didn’t, she changed her tone. It was hard some days with the way she mentally switched on him. When he was growing up, it had been harder, learning to read her before she spoke, gauging what kind of mood she was in. Now, he was used to it. But it sometimes jarred, creating a mental itch. “If you must know, I was calling to ask if you were coming by to see me but seems as you don’t give two shits about me, I take it as a no. You’ll be happy when I fucking die, won’t you? You only get one mother, you know. If it isn't too much bother for you to come out of your safe little world, I need cigarettes.”

“You’re not meant to be smoking. Doctor--”

“Oh, what do they know? Smoking hasn’t killed me off yet, and it isn’t going to. Bet you’d like that wouldn’t you?”

“They know a lot. They’re doctors.”

“Quacks you mean. They can't even diagnose a stroke properly. They don’t want to. They give me this shit about an ice attack.”

“Ischemic attack.”

“Whatever they call it. They don't want to treat me, that’s what it is. These doctors. They don’t care about their patients any more. It's all money. Your grandmother died because of them. That arsehole killed her with malpractice. He should have been struck off after what he did.”

“She had a blood clot.”

“And why is that? Because he fed her those pills all the time. He didn’t treat her right.”

“She was overweight and sat around all day. That’s what caused the blood clot. Not the doctor.” They’d had this conversation so many times, the only thing that ever changed in it was him, and the way he responded. Sometimes he just couldn’t be bothered and nodded at whatever she said, but others, like now, he tried to reason with her, tried to make her see some sense.

“Oh, William, you’re so naïve. Open your eyes. They don’t want to treat me. They’re in it for themselves, covering everything up. Even me. They don’t want to care for me. If they diagnose a stroke, then they have to spend money making me better. But I’m old in their eyes. You haven’t lived like I have. If you had, that little slut of yours would never have got her claws into you.”

“She’s called Rosie.”

“Rosie … whatever. Same fucking thing. She’s a piece of work. You want to watch yourself with that one.”

He leant against the wall, sighed, put his head back and closed his eyes. His temple throbbed already, each word she spoke grating along his skin and creating invisible marks. “You don’t know her.”

“I know her type. You’ve not lived as long as I have, William. You don’t know what I know. I see it in her. Acting all nice and sweet, waving those pert tits at you. You listen to me, William. I--”

He cut the call and tossed the phone back onto his desk. “Fuck you.” That sentence. His trigger sentences. Listen to me. He’d listen to her alright. He’d listen to her pleading with him, begging forgiveness. He backed into the wall more, smacking the back of his head off it as he pushed the balls of his hands into his eyes. “Fuuuuuuucccccck.” He let out a long, slow breath, lowered his hands, closed his eyes and breathed. His pulse raced and his skin was on fire with her words. She hadn’t said much, but it was enough for him.

The phone rang again. He glared at it, glared at her name, his breaths coming short and sharp now, his top lip curling back. “Leave me alone. Just leave me the fuck alone.” He grabbed the phone and jabbed his finger hard enough at the screen to nearly break it. If he could slam his fingers through the screen and hit her to silence her, he would. He cancelled her call, and the next one, and the one after that. Then the phone changed its bleep with a text message notification and without looking at it, he threw the phone in the top drawer of his desk and closed it. “Get out of my life.”

Storming out of the room, he slammed the office door behind him. His skin aching, his heart torn and his mind screaming inside. Rosie. He should call Rosie. The room swayed as his mind tried to take him out of his head. Made him dissociate from it all. He grabbed the banister. He couldn’t call Rosie because the phone was in his office, ringing and ringing.

“Go downstairs.” He spoke aloud, focusing himself. If he vocalised the words, the commands to himself, he could make it down the stairs and not to the bathroom where he really wanted to go, so he could drag the blade down his skin and make it all go away. “Take a step. One step.” He took one, then another and another. His body ached with the need to feel steel biting into his flesh. That unzipping of pain, the tap to release the build-up.

Another step, one more. The phone rang in the office. The tune muffed by the drawer and door. He made it to the last step and then forced himself to walk into the kitchen and to the back door. He opened that, let in the fresh afternoon air and the sound of a dog barking somewhere close by. The dog, he listened to that, gripped the door and stayed there until the cold from the day made him start to shiver.

He managed to stay downstairs long enough to make a drink, blended fruit and greens. Something that took longer to make than a coffee and good for his body as well as his mind. It was another part of the Carly cure. If he did something good for his body rather than hurt it, he’d feel that. It would put his mind in the right place so he could deal with whatever was upsetting him in a proper fashion.

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