Medicine Man (Page 27)

Yesterday I was hesitant about my touch. As much as I wanted it, it wasn’t necessary to my very survival. Today, it feels like he’s the only one who can bear this weight – my weight and the weight of my dark thoughts – with his large body and intense eyes.

So I lean over him, completely, bringing our chests flush together. Or rather, my chest to his ridged abdomen. He lets me, and the breath I take is the lightest one since this morning.

But there’s still that lingering heaviness. Something solid and bubbling, at the same time. Something that needs to be purged now that he’s here.

Why does he make me feel this way? That he’ll make everything better just by his presence.

After a pause, I say, “I went to a funeral once. It was for my mom’s friend. I think I was twelve or something. Do you know what I felt, when I looked at the body?”

“What?”

“My mom wouldn’t let me go near it, at first. But I snuck up to it when she wasn’t looking.” I look him in the eye, even though I want to hide my shame. “I was jealous. Of the dead body.”

I’m waiting for him to frown or throw me a condescending look even though I know he won’t. He’s not like that. And maybe that’s why I’m telling him.

When he waits for me to talk, staring at me with his calm face and beautiful eyes, I go on. “I thought she had what I wanted. I thought I wanted that. I wanted to be that, the dead body. It was something I was aspiring to. I wanted to achieve death. But I couldn’t let myself have it. I wouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

I focus on the pulse of his neck, the triangle of his throat, as I tighten my fist in his shirt.

“Because of my mom. Because I just… I can’t bear the thought of leaving her behind.” He’s blurry through the lens of my tears. “The only reason I don’t do it is because I can’t take leaving something behind.”

A salty drop slides down my cheek before I can stop it. They are like my words today. I can’t stop them from slipping out. “Why’s it so hard? Why’s everything so hard for me? It’s not supposed to be this hard, is it? Getting up from the bed. Freshening up. Going to get breakfast. Eating. Saying hi to people. Smiling. Laughing. It shouldn’t be this hard. It can’t be. It’s me. I’ve got it all wrong somehow. I’ve got everything wrong.”

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

That’s what I am. I was born wrong. With the wrong kind of blood. In the wrong family.

“If I wasn’t born, then my mom wouldn’t be so disappointed, you know. She’d have a different daughter. A perfect daughter. She’d throw parties for her. She’d dress her up. And that daughter, she’d appreciate it. I’m not… I don’t… appreciate things… I can’t…”

My thoughts are breaking up, getting chaotic, but everything screeches to a halt when he puts his hand on me. Or rather just one finger. Thumb on my cheek.

My gaze skitters to his face and the look he gives me is penetrating.

So penetrating that all the glaring brightness inside my head seems to be dimming under the shine of his eyes.

“It’s intimidating. It’s terrifying to fight every second of every day. To wake up, tired and exhausted, knowing that you have to do it all again. It’s easy to give up, isn’t it?” he rasps, his thumb sliding along the single stream of tear.

His touch, bare minimum as it is, is dimming every other feeling inside me. My lips part and my heart flutters inside my chest.

The sign that I’m alive. The sign that I can feel his touch.

I nod, brimming with life and yet, so pliable and submissive. “Yes.”

 “Yeah. It would be so easy to just give up. Not fight.” His voice is hypnotizing, so hypnotizing that I want to sleep wrapped around with it. “You know why we don’t? At least, mostly? Because we’re born fighters. We come into this life, kicking and screaming, bursting with all the energy. There’s no shame in having to fight. There’s no shame in having to kick and scream. There’s no shame in being a warrior. It’s the most honorable thing you can do for yourself. Pick up a sword and fight. Just reach out, Willow, and pick it up. That’s all you have to do. And if someone makes you feel ashamed just for the fact that you’re a fighter, then…” He licks his lips. “Then fuck them.”

His words are soft, just as his mouth is, but the intensity in them, the vibration, jolts something inside me. It shifts something.

It’s the sun. Maybe it’s going behind the clouds.

“You think I’m a warrior?” I whisper, in awe.

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

And now, I won’t hurt anymore. I won’t have to hide anymore.

I can come out.

Maybe I can really come out.

I’m safe. He saved me.

“I must be your dream come true,” I whisper to this gray-eyed hero, the fixer. “All broken and cracked.”

His thumb flexes over my cheek and I stay still. Still like I’m dead. But the heart inside my chest is beating with probably ten lives.

“I don’t dream.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have trouble falling asleep, too.”

I imagine him in his bed, trying to fall asleep at night. Tossing and turning. What kind of a bed does he have? What color sheets? Does the sleep mess up his hair, thicken his stubble?

My insomnia is medicine-induced. I wonder what his is.

“What keeps you up?”

“Recently, the never-ending repairs.”

I shake my head at him, and his eyes shift to my hair. It’s loose around my shoulders. Since it’s my only asset, I have it long and thick and going down to my waist.

Does he like it? My silvery strands?

“I count sheep,” I say instead. “When I couldn’t sleep.”

But then you fixed it, too.

He looks into my eyes. “Maybe I should try that.”

Despite everything, a small smile blooms on my lips. “Did I just cure you? The medicine man?”

He’s still tracing his thumb along the apple of my cheek. I don’t know if he realizes that. If he realizes that he’s still touching me and I’m still fisting his shirt and our chests are moving in sync. When he breathes out, I breathe in. I’m filling my tired lungs with his air.

Does he realize that?

He’s in me, now.

He studies my smile. “Maybe you did.”

“I –”

“Simon?”

Someone speaks over me and suddenly, all the coziness leaves my body.

Beth’s standing at the door, taking us in. Me almost wrapped around Dr. Blackwood. Him tracing his thumb on my cheek.

I’m frozen. Unable to think, unable to do anything.

But he doesn’t have that problem, because he steps back from me. The click of his wingtips hitting the floor as he moves away makes me jerk.

“Beth,” he says with a polite nod.

He’s all calm and composed, when I’m standing here like a frightened animal on shaky, wobbling legs.

Beth moves her eyes from him to me. “Are you feeling okay, Willow?”

“Yes…”

I want to say more but I trail off. What should I even say? I mean, we were a little too close, but it wasn’t as if we were doing anything.

Does it look bad? Standing intimately close to your psychiatrist, while he wipes your tears off? Is there no one in this whole wide world who’s ever done that?