Five hours ago, and I was just sitting down at my computer. Switch on, press button, wait...wait...wait...

Phone.

Crying on the other end, and my attention is now completely pulled away from my computer, which is doing strange things.

"....he....he....he....we got into a fight...."

These words are barely audible over the racking sobs. It's Rose...i'd know that cry anywhere.

"What? What did he do? What did who do? Rose, calm down and tell me whats going on."

More crying, and then "Nate...he...he...we got into a fight...i spilled wine on his shirt....I didn't mean to..."

And now i'm upset too, because I know she wouldn't call me like this over a stained shirt and a petty argument with her boyfriend.

"Rose, please calm down. Tell me what happened."

"He...he...he hit me"

More weeping, and I tell her I'll be right there. I grab my coat and forget the keys. She's three blocks away, and it will be faster to run. I'm out of breath after the first block, but I'm running faster to keep up with the thoughts racing through my head; nothing rings louder than "I told her so..."

Two minutes later, and I'm there. She's waiting in the doorway, black mascara running down her bruised face. My heart stops, but the thoughts speed up.

i should have been there to prevent this
i knew this was going to happen
i should have protected her

But now she's hugging me, holding on to me tighter than she ever has before. I can't help but cry with her. She lifts up her face and looks at me, the blue green spreading down her cheekbone. I wipe away her tears and mascara, and she hugs me again.

And then, footsteps. Up the front walk, and I turn around to see who's coming.

The only thing I remember about what happened next is being pulled off his unconcious body by Rose's neighbor. I didn't want to go...I wasn't finished. He wasn't broken enough yet. He lay there unconcious and bleeding as someone called an ambulance. I wish they hadn't. I'd have just left him there.

Rose walks me into her house and helps me clean the blood off my hands. For the rest of the night, she only says one thing, and that is to ask if she can stay at my place tonight. Right now, she's sound asleep in the other room. As of when I kissed her goodnight, the entire right half of her face is badly bruised.

As for the strange things my computer was doing, it was only a non-system disk error. Thank God it wasn't anything serious...