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‘I’m sorry Morag. It was wrong. It was stupid. I just wanted you to understand that I wanted it all to stop, that things couldn’t keep going on this way. I was tired of this never-ending cycle we go through.’ He sounded genuine, reaching out with his hand as though gesturing her to come to him, looking inviting. His voice was steady but betraying the panic and emotion in the undertones and the way his gaze kept flicking to where Rose crouched, checking her every second to see she was okay. He was trying to placate Morag and get his girl the hell away from her. ‘It all got out of hand, you were behaving erratically. Making threats. I didn’t know how else to handle you anymore.’

‘You are stupid!’ She spat viciously. ‘You had everything I could offer. All of me! You just pushed it away again and again and for what? For that!’ She pointed the blade at Rose again, causing her to lift her hands instinctively and Rob impulsively moved forward and then back again when Morag spun her head to face him with a sneer.

Rose’s own face wet with tears, a hot thick liquid had made its way down her skin on the left side, her eye stinging with its invasion and making everything blurry on that side.

‘Morag, please. If you’re using her to hurt me, then I’m right here. You hurting her is the same as sticking that knife right here.’ He thumped his hand on his chest over his heart. ‘So why not just do it? If I’m the one you want to punish then leave her alone and turn that blade on me.’

Rose shook her head, unable to formulate any words, panic searing her heart. Her head shaking involuntarily.

No Rob, please.

But Morag just cried out

‘NOOOOOO!... I love you!... I don’t want to hurt you... I want you to do to her what you did to me. I want you to come back to me and forget you ever met her.’ She was shaking wildly, the knife swaying once more and her body giving up on her, sliding down from kneeling to sagging.

‘I never wanted to hurt you Morag. I didn’t choose to fall in love. It just happened.’ Rob moved closer, gently stepping, small easy movements but she felt his closeness and panicked. Screaming out and grabbing for Rose again, managing to catch the fabric of her hooded top and yanking her a tiny bit closer. Rob froze, sliding back calmly, keeping her eyes on him.

‘You think I just woke up one day and wanted to throw you aside. You were my friend, someone I cared about. I knew you needed me. I just couldn’t do it anymore...I was weak, and I let you down.’ He soothed, his manner calm and genuine.

‘I need you more than she ever could!’ Morag reverted to quiet tears, hands shaking once more and the knife drooping before her.

‘Maybe that’s true Morag... Maybe you’re right... But it’s not about her needing me. It’s about ME needing her.’ He was gaining control of his voice, the fear being replaced with strength and conviction, a new tactic as he saw her resolve beginning to crumble. ‘And if you do something to take her from me, I’ll never recover. I’ll never come back to you Morag. Even if she was gone. Even if she chose to leave me. I would never forgive you... I would blame you for an eternity and hate you for it.’

Morag’s hand began to shake, the knife waving in the air between the two women.

‘Why couldn’t you just love me enough?’ Her tone was lowering, her screams now soft sobs as reality seemed to come back to her and his words had started to filter through.

‘I tried Morag, I tried to be who you needed. I tried to love you the way you wanted all these years. But I couldn’t. I tried to help you instead, but all I did was keep you like this.’

She shook her head at him, watching him from her slumped shape on the floor and crying dejectedly. Rose held her breathe, seeing the woman losing her violent rage and becoming more submissive.

‘If I had let you move on. If I had made a clean break and allowed you to accept we were over Morag, I don’t think we would be here now.’

Rob shrugged, moving into the room a little, very slowly and carefully.

‘You’re wrong.’ The fight was draining from the woman and Rose feeling braver was trying to edge forward towards Rob as he motioned her with a nod. The knife held loosely just out of reach from either of them but not being held aloft anymore.

‘I’m not wrong Morag, if I hadn’t kept picking up the pieces, kept coming back into your life over and over. Torturing you and stopping you from ever moving on, then where would you be now?’

’You just needed time to forgive me. We were good together and I ruined it all with lies.’ Her gaze on the floor was now at her own feet, silently sobbing.

’Morag the reason you felt you had to lie about the baby, was that even then, you knew I didn’t love you that way. You knew I would do the right thing by you. Ask you to marry me, even though deep down you had known for a long time I no longer looked at you like that. I was stuck in a relationship with you because of guilt and for one drunken night, a sense of duty.’ Rob extended a hand in Rose’s direction, urging her to keep moving towards him and trying to get close enough to intervene if Morag saw her.

‘Stop it’ Morag was silently crying, her shoulders lifting with every shuddering breath and looking completely spent.

‘I wasn’t what you needed. I just stood in the way of letting you see what you needed. Stood in the way of you going out and finding your own life. I was the problem!’

The woman cried out in anguish, tears falling fast and thick, shaking her head but unable to argue. Rose paused mid crawl, fear biting down once more and afraid to move another inch. Rob paused too, eyes widening and waiting to see what would happen, taking another sliding step closer.

‘You’re always what I need. I don’t know how to go on without you!’ Morag sobbed loudly, still her eyes on the floor.

‘I don’t want to be in your life anymore Morag. I want a life of my own. A life with Rose... I’m sorry, but that’s how it is, all of this has just proven how toxic I am in your life.’

There was a pained stretched silence. Morag motionless, letting his words filter through her foggy brain as she sat silently staring. The tears falling fast down her cheeks and dripping onto her shirt. The knife fell from her fingers silently, clanging to the ground as she broke down, giving into the overwhelming pain with a release of sound that closely resembled a wail.

‘I never wanted to hurt her.’ She cried, falling down onto the floor face first, her hands following to the ground as she curled up into a ball and wept desperately.

Rose grabbed the cold sharp weapon from the floor where it had fallen and moved forward like lightning into his outstretched arms. She threw it away from them into the lounge to the side of him and burst into tears. It slid loudly under the couch out of sight as he pulled her against him breathlessly, turning her away from Morag’s crumpled body and shielding her. Crushing her against him with a force that almost winded her, he pulled her back, his hands searching her body and face for wounds, his face searching hers, asking if she was hurt.

Forehead to forehead, as he inhaled loudly, the sweeping sound of relief that he had her in his arms and she could feel his body trembling now, his breathing shallow. His shoulders heaving as he tried to regain control. She had never seen him so scared, kissing her firmly and pulling her towards him in another bear hug as though she might disappear at any second and again returning to checking her over for signs of injury almost frantically.

Rose felt her knees go weak and the blood draining entirely from inside her. The acute relief at being safe, suddenly sweeping over her.

He kept pulling her away, desperate to keep assuring himself that she was okay and scanning her body again and again, sure there was a concealed injury that he was missing, returning her to his chest every few seconds, needing to hold her close and protect her. She could see his face clearer now, the moonlight shining from the window to the side of them, directly on his tense features, his eyes full of tears and emotion and his hands shaking.

‘It’s going to be okay baby, I’ve got you. I’m here now .... It’s over.’ He murmured, soothing words, for both their benefit, soft and hoarse, almost a whisper. Stroking her face and arms, kissing her forehead and calming both of them. He pushed her behind him protectively, turning and looking down at the woman on the floor who was now a sodden mass of pathetic weeping, completely oblivious to anything around her. Rob Pulled out his phone and pressing 111, he handed it to Rose to take; she just stood mutely trying to reel in her mind, automatically putting it to her ear but she was not really listening. Shock taking over in place of adrenaline.

Rob moved forward slowly, stepping over the frail and pathetic heap on the tiles where Morag sobbed manically; no longer a threat to anyone. Lost in her own pain and reality, that everything around her had finally crumbled to ashes. He flicked the light switch on. illuminating the mess of the kitchen, the broken torn up dishes and pans and scattering of utensils. The chaos of having everything in sight thrashed around by hands clutching in the darkness. It looked like there had been a tornado of destruction and it brought physical pain to Rose’s heart to see it all now. Turning to the knife block, Rob picked up the whole thing and moved it up high to the overhead units, where Morag could never reach them. He took the ones from the dish rack and placed them up beside them, clearing the kitchen of anything Morag could use to repeat the attack.

It was obvious she was spent and wouldn’t have the ability, but it was making Rob feel calmer; having a focus. Stopping to rub his hands across his face and through his hair and pull himself together, inhaling deeply again, taking steadying breaths and regaining calm control. Turning, he looked at Rose in the light of the electric bulb, his face crumbling instantly as he saw her for the first time in proper light. He crossed the room in quick strides and pulled her face close to his. Rose was still numbly holding his phone to her ear, oblivious of anyone on the other end.

‘Shit baby.’ He pulled up his t-shirt, holding the soft fabric to her face and pressing it against the blood trickling down, it was almost at her cheek now. She could feel its warm descent. His eyes tracing her swollen bruised lips, bruised face and tear stained cheeks. Cursing under his breath repeatedly, eyes filled with a look of anguish and anger tearing him apart. He was struggling to keep control, the urge to turn on Morag evident in the tense set of his jaw and deep angry frown.

‘I’m okay.... It’s worse than it looks.’ Rose cleared her throat; her voice was weak and trembling and barely audible, but Rob pulled her back into his arms.

Rob could hear the voice coming from the phone, asking her which service and realised she was oblivious to anything right now, shock setting in. He took it from her, looking down at the pitiful sight on the floor cruelly, lost in its own mind and heartbreak. He felt nothing but hatred for her now, all sense of empathy had died the second she had done the one thing that would forever make him hate her. She had dared to hurt his Rose.

He asked for police and ambulance.