He doesn’t.
His lips are sealed, and his nod is grim and tight.
Neither does he say anything when we meet in the hallway by Beth’s office the next day. He’s staring at the same pictures.
Now, I understand why these photos depict the happiness instead of the crude and gritty reality. It’s because they are a beacon of hope. This place can be dismal and lonely, and that’s why these photos are meant to shine.
I get it now.
I stand by him and say the same thing I said a long time ago. “Interesting photos.”
He faces me, and I look at him with hope. Maybe today he’ll tell me about his dad. Maybe after all this time, I’ve showed him enough. I’ve showed him that I trust him and no matter what it is, my faith in him won’t go away.
But when he speaks, his words aren’t what I want them to be. “How many days?”
“Three.”
He nods and walks away.
***
Two days before The Goodbye, there’s a storm outside. Rain batters and beats this Victorian building, and everyone is cooped up inside. The girls are in the TV room, like most of the patients. I, however, am in the library.
I still can’t believe Beth ordered all these Harry Potter books based on my suggestion. Like, wow. An entire shelf has been dedicated to my favorite series of all time. I need to thank her before I leave.
I’m standing by the shelves, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in my hands, when Simon walks in. Ever since we met in the hallway yesterday and I thought he’d talk to me about his dad, my heart has been heavy, and I have to really focus to not let it show.
Smiling is the key.
So I do that. “Hey, Dr. Blackwood.”
I’m aware that the nurse is right here, sitting at the desk in the front with a book of her own.
He walks closer, watching me in that thorough way of his. I hope he doesn’t find out that my feelings are in turmoil. That every night this week I’ve gone to sleep crying.
“Beth ordered all these books for me. I think Josie told her all the times I complained about it,” I tell him, hugging my copy to my chest.
He doesn’t look at the books, keeping his focus on me. “Maybe she did.”
I swallow, my throat filling up with things I want to say. Things I want to ask. Maybe I should let go of my stupid vow and ask him directly. Maybe he’s waiting for me to ask him.
But I don’t get the chance because he reaches out and takes the book from my hands, like he usually does when I’m hugging them for strength. Perhaps he does it because he doesn’t want me to hide from him.
“Half-Blood Prince,” he reads off the title. “I’ve never liked Harry Potter. Actually, no. It’s a lie. I did like it. I was jealous of the characters. Jealous because they all had magic. They could make things happen just by drinking a potion or flicking a wand.”
Oh my God.
Is he telling me?
Is my patience going to pay off? Does he finally realize he can trust me?
I go still. Like, completely still. I’m afraid to breathe, to blink. To make any sudden movements that might spook him.
Although I do cross my fingers and my big toes inside my bunny slippers.
“My mom made me read the first three when they came out. Well, she wanted to read them herself. I was there for the company. I just kept going after that.”
Simon’s looking out the window to our side, appearing lost, and it’s such torture to just stand here, immobile, so far away from him. But I don’t know what else to do.
“She wouldn’t go to sleep until we finished them. And I couldn’t say no to her. I could never say no to my mom, actually. She loved being outdoors. Loved the willow tree in our backyard. I remember spending my summer vacations under that tree. When I was a kid, I used to think that my mom was so bright and full of life. I thought she had so much energy. She was always doing something, going somewhere, and I was always with her. She took me everywhere, vacations, shopping, and I thought it was because she loved me.
“She did love me, but she took me with her because she was alone. Because she needed company and my dad was always busy. He was always here. At Heartstone. With his patients. And my mom…” He sighs. “Well, my mom was lonely. She waited for him. She was good at that. Waiting. And my dad was good at saying no. So that left me. I don’t know how I compared but I did everything I could. To make her feel less lonely.”
My heart’s beating so loud. Louder than the storm outside. It’s a wonder I can hear him. It’s a wonder I can understand what he’s saying.
Most of all, it’s a wonder I haven’t hugged him yet. This lonely, lonely man.
Simon’s always been a fixer, hasn’t he? Always been a hero.
He’s a rock.
But right now, he’s a brittle one. He could break any second; he’s so stiff. So devastated.
I know I said I wouldn’t ask but I think he needs this. He needs the push.
“What… What happened to her?”
Simon looks away from the window at my words, and for a second I think I’ve ruined it all. He won’t tell me.
But then, he puts the book on the shelf and shoves his hands inside his pockets. In a flash, he’s back to being himself. He isn’t devastated anymore. He’s angry. Furious, even.
“She killed herself.”
My mouth falls open as I feel the breath getting knocked out of me. “Simon –”
The look he gives me is the angriest I’ve ever gotten from him and I almost draw back in my place. “I’d like to see you in my office this afternoon.”
With that, he leaves, and all I can do is watch him do it.
Hours later, when I go to his office and see the closed blinds and hear the two clicks of the door closing and locking, I don’t feel the same satisfaction as I felt days ago.
“Simon, listen—”
“Don’t say no,” he rasps.
There’s so much anguish packed in those three words that my tears start falling. Like I’m the rain and he’s the cloud that makes me flow.
Does he really think I’ll ever say no to him? If he does, then he really doesn’t know the things I feel for him. The things I’ll do for him. The depths I’ll go to and fall in, for him.
Simon Blackwood doesn’t know anything, then.
I nod and he’s on me.
It’s okay. We can talk later. Right now, if he needs my body to feel better, then I’ll give it to him.
I become completely pliable as he lowers me down on the hardwood floor. He makes quick work of my clothes and enters me in one smooth thrust, because even agitated I’m wet as fuck for him.
It’s like my body knows he needs me right now. He needs me more than he’s ever needed me and every feminine part of me is loose to let him in.
My pussy makes cream for him so it’s easier for him to slide in. My internal muscles clench and release so he can get the maximum pleasure. My skin becomes more sensitive, softer, more pillowy so he can dig his fingers in.
I am his playground, and he can play all he wants. I’m his medicine in this moment, curing his illness. His princess slaying his dragons.
His rhythm is choppy but even then, we move in sync. I think this is the most in sync, in rhythm we’ve ever been. He’s staring into my eyes with such passion, such turbulence that I wind my legs around his waist and arch my back to let him in deeper. The hardness of the floor doesn’t even register with how hard he is above me.
Simon has an arm braced up by my head and his other is clutched in a fist in my hair. It’s like he’s holding on to me because he thinks he might drown. The look in his gaze is so lost and so horny, it breaks my heart.
I won’t let him drown; I tell this to him with my eyes. I tell him when I gasp his name. I tell him when he pants into my mouth, his brows bunched up in a heavy frown.
“Simon,” I whimper his name and he locks our mouths in a kiss.
And while I’m clenching around him, he withdraws, takes off his condom and comes on my pussy and my wild curls, branding me like that first time.
Despite the waves of orgasm flashing through both of us, he pulls me to my feet. With glittering eyes, he puts his hands under my ass and heaves me up, taking me in his arms.
In his usual fashion, he walks me to the washroom and sits me down on the counter. The marble is so cold against my naked butt.
Then, he goes back out and gets my clothes. Wetting a tissue and cleaning me up, he puts me back into my clothes like I’m a child. I let him do it because I know it makes him happy, smoothing down my hair, taking care of me.
But I can’t bear the silence any longer. “Simon –”
He looks up, his eyes cracked open in a way I can’t put my finger on. “Willow, I…”
Even though he trails off, my breathing escalates. My heart races. It pounds, and goose bumps come alive on my skin.
Because for some reason I think… I think he’s going to say it. He’s going to say what I’ve been waiting for.
His chest is moving up and down, just like mine. We’re breathing as one. Me and him. I bet the looks in our eyes match too because I’m cracked open in the way he is, as well.
It makes me realize what it is I’m seeing in his expression. It’s vulnerability. We’re both vulnerable. Flayed. Bare. Naked.
And we’re both broken, in this moment. Broken and melted.
My ice king is going to say it.
He’s going to say he loves me.
“I… I –”
His words get swallowed up by the ringing of the phone and I could scream with how cliché this is. How fucking cliché and unfortunate.
A cruel joke.
“Simon, don’t. Please.” I grip his bicep, but he shakes his head and leaves me there.
Although, he can’t get to his phone on time, and I hear a man’s voice when the machine picks up the call – Seriously, what era is this? Every fucking thing in this Victorian mansion is old-fashioned:
“Hey, man. Pick up your fucking cell phone. We need to talk about Claire. Two weeks are up.”
I come out of the bathroom and I wouldn’t have thought anything of it or the name Claire, if I hadn’t seen Simon transform right in front of me.
Going all tight and icy, standing by the desk, staring at the phone. It’s so startling, his change. So abrupt and so shocking, after seeing him unravel a thousand times.
My heart’s racing but for a very different reason now and something like dread makes a home in my stomach. “Simon –”
He whirls to face me. “Get out.”
“What?”
“Get. Out.”
“But –”
“Leave, Willow.”
I don’t.
How can I? After everything. After what he told me and what he was going to tell me.
His fury rises, rises and rises, until it spills over and he lashes out, “Willow, for once in your goddamn life, will you do as I say?”
I flinch at his voice. I’ve never seen him like this. So cold and so heated at the same time. All the lines on his body and face set in stone. It cracks my heart, right in the middle. Crushes it, beats it into a pulp.
As soon as I feel my eyes watering, I do as he says.
I leave, realizing that he never asked me his usual question: how many days.
One day.
Before The Goodbye.
And the man I’m in love with isn’t even looking at me.
It’s like the way he looked at me yesterday when I thought he was finally going to say something, acknowledge this thing between us, was it. He has used up all his intensity, all his passion, his heat in that one look and he doesn’t have anything left now.
He’s ice cold.
Or maybe it’s all in my head. Maybe he wasn’t even going to say anything. Maybe he never intended to say it, and whatever I’ve been feeling for the past few days is nothing but a delusion.
I’m delirious. In schizophrenic love.
With the man standing across the room. He’s the tallest man at my party – my going away party. He’s also the most aloof, tucked away in a corner. He’s not even eating cake.
Renn and the girls ordered a lime cake for me, specifically. And we’re all assembled in the rec room – patients, techs, nurses, therapists.
How ironic is it that it all started with a party? My eighteenth birthday party. We had a chocolate cake with fresh raspberries in the filling. The number of people who attended was bigger, but I didn’t know more than half of them, and they didn’t know me. They came because my family invited them, and maybe because they wanted free booze and cake.
On the Inside though, people do know me. Maybe some of them I haven’t talked to personally, but still. They know I’m one of them.
So far, Annie, Lisa, Roger, a few other patients, and a couple of nurses, along with Hunter and Beth, they all have come to wish me good luck for the life on the Outside.
Ellen from the reflections group has come to hug me and tell me how proud of me she is. Hers was the group where I confessed my lies and accepted the fact I do have suicidal ideation, and that I’m a fighter.
I’m the chosen one, you see.
We all are. We’re the ones who choose to fight. Every single day. Every single moment.
We don’t give up when thoughts get dark. We don’t give up when meds don’t work. We don’t give up when our inner demons overpower the demons on the outside.
We don’t give up. Period.
We choose to be more than our illness and yes, it’s hard. And it’s fucking unfair. But when is life ever fair? You make the best of what you’ve been dealt and we’re here because every single one of us wants to be the best that we can be.
Until six weeks ago, I never would’ve even thought of being here. But now, I don’t want to leave. It’s like I’m going to leave my family, a different, quirky family and all I want to do is break down and cry.
Will he come for me, if I do that? Will he look at me then, if I sob and wail?
Just the fact that I’m contemplating crying so he pays me some attention proves that I’m borderline psychotic.
But I do want to do that, psychotic or not. I do want to make a scene, start a commotion so he’ll come for me. Maybe even keep me here, locked up.
Because I want to know what happened.
What the fuck happened?
Everything was fine – well, everything was broken because he hadn’t confessed his feelings for me or given me any indication of what the future holds for us, but still, things were fine.
I thought we were making progress. Every time we talked; every time we fucked; every time he took care of me, it made me feel that we came that much closer. I thought he’d say something before I left. Or at least give me his phone number or some clue that he still wanted to be in touch with me on the Outside.
Anything.
But then one phone call about Claire and everything just shattered.
Like always, I’ve analyzed it to death and I think this must have something to do with his old job. I’ve always known something’s eating at him and this must be it. Well, besides the fact that his mom killed herself. No wonder he’s so cold and seemingly unemotional.
But that doesn’t stop my devastation. It doesn’t stop me from being sad and angry that I meant so little to him.
Before I can drown in my head, Josie finds me, and we chat for a little bit. She tells me again how proud she is of me and I tear up, thanking her.
Then I remember something. “Oh hey, I, uh, forgot to thank you for the books.”
“What books?” She takes a bite of her cake.
“Harry Potter. I can’t believe you actually listened to me. Thank you for that. Though
you didn’t have to get like, a hundred copies and dedicate an entire shelf to them. But you know, I’m not complaining.”
She’s frowning. “I didn’t do anything.”
“What?”
“I don’t handle books. Or stuff like that.”
“You must’ve said something to someone? To Beth?”
She shakes her head. “Nope. I didn’t say anything. Maybe you should talk to her. She and Dr. Martin, they’re the ones who handle stuff like that. Well, now it would be Dr. Blackwood.”
“Dr. B-Blackwood?” I ask in a squeaky voice.
“Yeah. Since Dr. Martin isn’t here right now.”
“Right.”
She smiles and turns away from me to talk to someone else. Or maybe it’s me who turns away. I can’t say.
I can’t say anything right now. I don’t even think I’m thinking right now.
Everything is a huge, giant mess in my head.
Simon ordered the books?
No.
Actually, Simon ordered a lot of books. A lot.
You guys should really do something about your library. There isn’t one Harry Potter book in there.
I did say that to him. A long time ago. The day he saved Annie. I was so impressed by that. I only said it to him because I wanted to hold on to my old ways. I was being stubborn while completely crushing on him.
Did he really remember it? Did he really, really buy those books for me?
I mean it could be Beth, too. But somehow, I don’t believe it. I don’t believe that she would order multiple copies of my favorite, favorite series – the series I’m basically an infomercial for; his words, not mine – and practically dedicate a corner for them.
Simon bought those books, and he bought them for me. He did, didn’t he?
My heart hammers inside my chest as I look at where he was standing before, in a corner, leaning against the wall. Kind of scowling but not really. But he isn’t there anymore. He’s gone.
“Oh God, where did you go?” I mutter to myself.
I feel such a visceral loss as I spin around, searching for him. Such a visceral, massive loss for someone who’s only left a room. Strangely, it feels like he left my life. And I’m still here. I’m not even gone yet.
Medicine Man Page 26