Medicine Man (Page 76)

My grip flexes on her cheek, trembles, like my heart, my fucking body. She doesn’t believe the rumors. She doesn’t believe any of it.

“You’re fucking breathtaking.”

She peers up at me through her lashes and warmth stirs in my gut. “What would you have done, if I hadn’t shown up?”

“I would’ve kept coming back. I would’ve kept watching you. I would’ve kept watching you fight and live, and you would’ve kept inspiring me to do the same. And maybe, one day I would’ve gathered enough courage to come talk to you.”

She shakes her head, sighing. “That was the hardest day after I got out. The beach. I didn’t want to get up. I didn’t even want to open my eyes. I was missing you so much and everything else just piled on from there. Renn told me I had to. In fact, all three of them came into my room, dragged me out, put me in the shower. They reminded me that I have to live. Because every day I live, I win.”

They are right. Every day she lives, she fights, she wins.

She stares down at her tattoo, caressing her wrist. “Two Ws mean Warrior Willow. I thought I’d make a play on Weird Willow and really get a tattoo. So I did.”

She throws me a wobbly smile, and I rub my thumbs around her mouth, hoping to soak that smile in. “They were assholes. They don’t know what the fuck life is all about. I’m going to find them and I’m going to break every bone in their body. I’m going to…”

I trail off when she touches my chest. My tattoo, to be exact. She chases away the chill from the winter and the rain with only a flick of her fingers on me.

“You’re not going to do anything,” she says, and I try not to think about how my heart fucking leaps, trying to bust out of my chest and touch her.

“What if I’d gotten a princess or something?”

“Then I’d have a princess on my chest.”

For the first time today, I see her smile reach her eyes. “You’re crazy.”

“Yes.”

“And a pervert stalker.”

“Yes. That too.”

“Do you know what else it means? Two Ws?”

My Adam’s apple bobs. “No.”

“Two Ms. When I read it upside down on my wrist, which let’s face it, I do several times a day.” She gives me her eyes. “It means medicine man.”

I cover her hand with mine and press it against my chest, trying to imprint her touch on my flesh. “Give me a chance, Willow. Just one.”

“Why?”

“So I can make it right. So I can do what I should’ve done that day. I should’ve taken back my words and I should’ve told you that I loved you. That you’ve been right all along. Let me make it right, please.”

She shakes her head, digging her nails in my chest. “No. I don’t want you to make it right. I want you to leave.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t make me leave, Willow.”

“I don’t need you. Even though I cry every night. Even though I dream about you every night and I don’t listen to my therapist who tells me to date. I’m still fighting. I’m still living. I’m a fighter. You taught me that. So why should I care?”

Twin tears stream down her eyes and seep into my fingers. “You don’t need me, yes. You don’t need anyone. You can be whatever you want to be, Willow. But I do know one thing.”

“What?”

I wipe her tears off, as I say, “When you smile, it doesn’t reach your eyes. When you laugh, you don’t throw your head back and do it with abandon. So I’m asking you. Begging you.”

“Begging me for what?”

“To let me be the man who can make you smile not with your lips, but with your eyes. I am asking you to let me be the man who makes you want to laugh with abandon.”

She trembles. You do know that nobody and no one has ever made me happy, right? What makes you think you can?”

I rest my forehead against hers. “I can because I am not no one. I am me. I believe. You make me believe. In magic. In fairy tales. In fate. In falling and rising. In the fact that I can do it. I can be what and who you need me to be. You make me believe I was born for you.”

She gasps like she can’t comprehend that I remember her words. I wish I could laugh at the absurdity of it. Absurdity that I could ever forget anything she’s ever said to me. I’ve filed it away, her words, her expressions, her touches in the furthest corners of my heart.

“I never should’ve attacked you. That wasn’t right.”

“I never should’ve said those things.”

“I didn’t know how to deal with what you said to me,” she whispers, brokenly.

“Let me fix it.”

She licks her salty lips. “That’s what you do, don’t you? You fix everything.”

“Not everything, no. Not anymore. Just the things I broke.”

“Like my heart.”

“Like your heart.”

Sighing, she rests both her hands on my chest and whispers, “Just one. One chance.”

“Fuck…” I groan, clenching my eyes shut, as if she breathed new life into me.

She digs her sharp nails into my flesh and I open my eyes to find her glaring at me. “But if you blow it. If you fucking blow it, Simon Blackwood, then I’ll hate you forever.”

I smile, finally. “I won’t let you hate me. I’d die before that.”

She swats at my chest. “Don’t talk about dying.”

Her glare widens my smile, and I ask her what I should’ve asked her right from the beginning. Maybe I would have, if she weren’t my patient and I wasn’t too trapped in my past.

But as I said, I’m going to fix it.

“Will you go out with me?

Her eyes search mine, as if again she can’t believe I said that. I can’t fault her. I haven’t been fair to her. I’ve let her fight alone for too long but I’m going to change that.

She slides her arms around my neck. “Out as in?”

“Out as in out. On a date. With me.”

“Haven’t we had this conversation before?”

“No.” I shake my head. “Because like an asshole I never asked you. But I’m doing it now.”

All my life I’ve wanted to be better, more, but I’ve only now realized that being better isn’t materialistic.

It isn’t about achievements on the outside. It’s an inside thing. Being better or more is personal, individualistic. It’s about growth. It’s about me.

“You’re not an asshole. You never were. You’re just an idiot.”

I chuckle. “Yeah, I’m that.”

As I look into her pretty eyes, I know that every day I’ll strive to love her better than I did yesterday. Every day I’ll strive to be a better man than I was yesterday and that’s the only better I care about. Loving her is my purpose. It’s the thing that runs in my veins, alongside my blood.

Loving Willow was what I was born to do.

Slowly, she smiles and says, “Fine. Pick me up at seven tomorrow night.”

I love the rain.

I’ve always loved it. It makes me think of second chances. How the water flows down and washes everything away. It leaves things clean and crisp.

A clean slate.

It’s very hard to get that, especially in real life. Nothing is ever clean. Nothing is ever wiped off. But there’s a thing called moving on.