30 reasons why - Roger Taylor

-REASON TWENTY THREE-

June 29th, 1979.

Home had never been so silent.

It was full of laughter and kisses to one another, stampedes of footsteps hitting the floor as Rosie chases Roger around the kitchen because he decided to tickle her while she was drinking water and ended up getting it all over the dining table. It was home to their late night jokes, the ones he makes right after they've had sex, and the little succulent sitting on their windowsill that Rosie had revived eight times already.

It was the home they've lived in for the past seven years, the place of their first anniversary together and possibly the last.

Roger would be lying if he said that he hadn't cried at all, because in reality, he did. He cried this morning in the shower, adding an extra ten minutes to his usual morning routine, and he also cried when she left for a quick meeting at the studio at noon because he was feeling the first few seconds of what life without Rosie felt like. The thirty year old cried so much today that he felt like he was eight and his sister tripped him as they played football at the park.

All the while Rosie was literally being torn apart at this point.

She never drove that often, but on her way to the studio, the car drew to a halt at a stoplight, she completely lost it. Her head was resting against the wheel and her throat hitched with silent sobs, and she always hated whenever she cried because she felt so...weak.

But in this moment, the days to come and the ones that have passed, they both have been run down. Beat with the fact that they have about a week left, and they just might not make it.

It killed them. It killed her, it killed Roger—to be in a relationship for almost ten years and have it be so close to the end that it's almost promised, that is what tears them apart. And there is nothing that could ever mend it the way it used to be.

Rosie is at the counter, breathing and focusing on cutting a carrot. She holds the knife tightly, but her hand shakes as she brings it to the top and—cut!

She has a scar on her forearm from a knife from twenty-three years ago.1956. Her father was there, the first time in two months, and the whole family was together for the first time in a long, long time. Vjekoslava's alcoholism wasn't in its full-effect yet, so she was sober for once.

Except, it wasn't a very peaceful time they had.

It took up to age twelve for Rosie to realise that her own father was abusive, and on that day, he hit her. She doesn't know exactly why, but she remembers that he was yelling at her and hitting her while her mother stood trying to fend him off.

This wasn't the first time her father had hit her, it happened before. She just didn't know the reason why.

Was she a disgrace to the family? Did her father just want to hurt her? Did he have severe anger management issues? All these questions, and Rosie never know the answers to any of them, even twenty-three years later.

But she still remembers him taking a knife from the kitchen and lunging towards her, only to have it graze her arm as her mother grabbed her away and started running down the steps of their apartment building.

It was a small, thin scar where the knife pierced her skin. But that didn't matter. What did matter was how angry her father got, how he hit her and her mother, and how she practically tried to kill her. It was traumatic for her to come across such a thing like that at a young age, and she still shivers from even thinking about it, being reminded of all the events that built up to her father's final departure just weeks later.