Wiping my tears again, I look at the ceiling. “And I don’t think we should talk anymore because I should be trying to move on rather than being hung up on the past. Heartstone. Him.”
She’s silent but unlike other times, I hear her. I hear her chopped breaths and little noises of cries. I must sound the same.
Both crying for a man who probably doesn’t even know that we’re secretly tearing up for him.
“All right. I won’t. I never should have started it in the first place. I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay. But before I go, I wanted to tell you one thing. The reason I brought it up today is because… well, Alistair, he passed away a few days ago.”
“I’m sorry?”
“He had Alzheimer’s and it had gotten pretty bad. We were expecting it but not really, you know. Anyway, there’s a funeral tomorrow at the cemetery by the hospital. I was calling to see if you’d like to come, but I’ll understand if you don’t.”
“I…”
“In fact, you shouldn’t. You should move on,” she says in a choked-up voice. “I can’t even tell you how proud I am of you. How much you’ve grown. You were one of the best patients at Heartstone and I’ve really enjoyed talking to you. Please know that. And please reach out to me, if you ever need anything. You’re not just a patient to me, okay?” Before she hangs up, she whispers, “Simon would’ve been lucky to have you.”
With a click she’s gone and the phone slips from my hands.
I feel dizzy but I can’t do anything about it. I can’t bury my head in between my knees. I can’t sit there until I feel better. I have to know.
Rubbing the tattoo on my left wrist that sits right above my blue vein, I walk out of the room.
I go to Renn and say, “Tell me about Claire.”
When Renn told me that his mom was his dad’s patient, my first thought was that I’m an idiot.
To fall for a man like that.
Of course he left me. Of course he didn’t want me. Why would he want to tie himself to an illness, to a woman like his mom? He knows the struggle. He knows the burden. He’s seen it, lived it.
But then, slowly, I remembered everything he said, everything he did for me. How he made me realize that I was a fighter. How he wanted me to fight and accept myself. How fondly he talked about his mom that day. How devastated he was about her death. How angry he always seemed at his father.
I went back and looked at the photo, the one Simon always stared at.
In fact, I looked at it a lot of times.
Fine, every day. On my way to breakfast.
There’s a woman in that photo, wearing a red dress, who has the most beautiful gray eyes. Her hair’s all wild and dark. I’m not sure but I think that’s Simon’s mother, Alexandra.
I can’t get her face out of my head now. Her smile and her big eyes. Beth was right. She was stunning, and she killed herself. And that would have still been tolerable if Simon wasn’t the one to find her dead body.
I’m not an expert but that kind of thing just never leaves you. If I ever needed a push to move on and forget about him, this is it.
Simon Blackwood is too damaged, too icy, too unfeeling. And for a good reason. Whatever he is, he isn’t for me. I can’t fix him, no matter how much I want to. How much I’m dying to. And who says he wants to be fixed by me, anyway?
He left, and I can’t even blame my illness because I know it wasn’t that. It wasn’t my damaged brain, it was my heart. He didn’t want my heart.
It’s done though. I’m moving on.
But I brought him flowers.
By him, I mean Simon’s father. I’m attending the funeral. On the down-low, actually. Meaning no one knows I’m here, at the cemetery, hiding behind a tree.
I have only attended one funeral in my life and it became The Funeral Incident. So I am clearly not the best person to have around when someone dies.
But I couldn’t stay at home, knowing that Simon would be going through this alone. Not that he is alone. There are people, tons of people, around him. I see Beth and Dr. Martin off to the side, among a lot of others that I don’t know. Clearly, his dad was well-known.
And it’s a good thing. Because not only is Simon not alone, but I have only been able to see the top of his head through the crowd.
I am afraid to see him.
I am afraid that if I see him, I’ll throw myself at him and confess my love, and then I might slap him and hit him like I did that day. Only difference will be that he won’t be able to have me sedated. So he won’t be able to escape.
Sometimes I can’t believe I did that. Attacked him and basically, goaded him to have me put down.
Yeah, let’s keep the distance.
After a while, I see people starting to leave, a sea of black coats and hats and umbrellas. I huddle behind the tree, out of everyone’s sight, my heart lurching in my chest. As soon as everyone leaves, I’ll go put the flowers on the fresh grave and leave too.
He is right here, though.
God.
He’s so close. So, so close that if I wanted, I could smell him.
“Okay, Willow. Relax,” I tell myself. “It’s okay. Things are okay. You don’t want to look at him. You don’t want to see his face. Because if you do then it will be harder to move on. You need to move on. You need that. Ruth is right. Listen to your therapist. Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look. Okay?”
I sigh, clenching my eyes shut, and repeat, “Don’t look.”
Oh God. This is fucking hard.
I’m shivering. My legs won’t stay still, and my breaths are choppy, and it’s not because of the winter rain.
I hear footsteps approaching me and my eyes, despite telling them to stay closed for about the ninetieth time, whip open.
And there he is, standing right in front of me.
Wearing a black suit, a tie, and his polished wingtips. Wearing the raindrops on his slightly-too-long hair and shoulders.
I wish he wasn’t real, but he is. I know. I can feel it. I can feel him beating right alongside my heart in my breastbone.
“Were you talking to yourself?”
My back comes unglued from the wet bark and I stand up straight.
I haven’t forgotten his voice. Not at all. It comes to me in my dreams, but I still get goose bumps hearing it. Rich, low and dense. It hits me right in the middle of my chest and sucks out all of my breath.
“No.” I shake my head, finding that spot on my left wrist where the tattoo is and rubbing it to calm myself.
Simon’s gaze catches my action and I stop.
He looks back up at my face and thrusts his hands inside his pockets in his signature move, and the breath that he sucked out of my body smashes back into my chest, and I almost gasp.
Clearing my throat, I say in my most normal voice, “I thought everyone was gone.”
“They are. Why were you hiding?”
“I wasn’t,” I say quickly. “I mean, I was. Uh, I didn’t know if…” I lick rain droplets off my lips. “Well, I didn’t know if you knew I was coming. If Beth told you or what? Or if you wanted me here.”
His eyes take me in, but only my face. He doesn’t look anywhere else and I do the same. I scan his stubbled jaw, his strong brows, his stubborn chin. Nothing about him has changed.
Not one thing.
He’s still perfect. Who knew perfection could make you want to cry?
He smiles his typical lopsided smile – it looks sad though – and ducks his head. “She told me, yes. I wasn’t expecting you to come, however.”
I rub my wrist again, now that he isn’t looking at me. “I’m sorry about your dad.”
Simon nods, grief flashing over his features. Suddenly, I wish that I had the right to walk up to him and hug him. Ask him things.
What happened, Simon?
A muscle jumps on his cheek and he says, “He developed a clot in his lungs. Due to inactivity. It’s fairly comm
on in Alzheimer’s patients. Especially, at an advanced stage.”
I’m so shocked that for a second I think, maybe I said it out loud. But I know I didn’t. I didn’t say anything.
Blowing on my bangs, I blurt out, “I know. I mean, Beth told me he had Alzheimer’s. But that’s it. She didn’t tell me anything else.”
“I know. She didn’t tell me, either.”
“Tell you what?”
“That she’s been in touch with you all this time.”
I didn’t think she would tell him. But now I wonder if he’d have stopped her from contacting me, had she told him.
Doesn’t matter. I’m moving on.
Then I remember I have flowers in my hands. I thrust them forward. “I brought flowers. You know, for him.”
He throws me a little nod. “Then you should give them to him.”
I move.
Moving is good. Moving means I’m not staring at him and watching him watch me. Maybe he’s thinking that I might attack him again. Maybe he thinks I’m still unstable.
I’m not.
I won’t do it again. No matter how heartbroken I become.
Broken heart is more dangerous than a disease of the mind, though. They give you a pill to make your brain happy, but they haven’t yet made a pill for heartbreak.
So there. That should teach everyone who wants to fall in love.
With lowered lashes, I glance at him. He’s looking straight ahead, his face clean and smooth, except for that stubble. No sign that he got attacked by a silver-colored hurricane. Not that I was expecting to find a sign or whatever.
But it feels like it never happened.
We reach the grave and I bend down, putting the flowers on the side. On my way back up, I catch something. The grave next to his father’s.
It says: Alexandra Lily Blackwood.
Oh man. That’s his mother.
I bite the inside of my cheek with a sudden onslaught of pain. Fisting my hands at my sides and closing my eyes for a second, I wonder again. Why don’t I have the right to touch this man? This tall, restrained, grief-ridden man.
When I open my lids, I find him staring at me and my heart kicks up a notch. The gray in his eyes is so deep, so vivid and so alive.
Is that what Beth meant when she said he comes alive when I’m close?
“My dad had reserved the space right next to her when she passed away. I didn’t know,” he says.
“Maybe he knew.”
“Knew what?”
I know Simon is looking at me, but I can’t look back, so I stare at the graves of two people who were so important to him. Quite possibly, the two most important people of his life. Now they are gone forever.
If I’m hurting this much for him, I don’t know how he’s coping with all this. I don’t know how he can stand there, all alone, with his shoulders so broad and straight.
How is he not breaking down?
“That she was waiting for him,” I say in a small voice. “She was good at that, right? Waiting. Maybe he knew about it, but he didn’t know how to go back to her. After everything he put her through. So, he chose this place. To finally go back to her in death because he never could in his life.”
The side of my face is flaming. I’m pretty sure I’m red, scarlet. Because he hasn’t stopped watching me.
Maybe he’ll find my fanciful thoughts young and immature. Like he finds me.
“How are you?” he asks, after a few moments.
Gathering my courage and fucking maturity, I face him. The fact that I can look at him without craning my neck means that he’s too far away.
Which is good, actually. Healthy.
Not complaining, at all.
I smile. “I’m good.”
His stare is unnerving. And strangely, it feels perpetual. Never-ending. Going on forever and ever.
And I can’t stop myself from telling him all the things. “School is good. I mean, I struggle with it sometimes but it’s great.”
“And friends?”
It makes me blush, the way he asks me about friends, with such tenderness and curiosity. Like I’m a little girl and he wants to make sure that I’m not alone.
“I do have friends, actually. Um, college is much better about it than high school. I have study partners and lab partners and yeah…” I trail off, not wanting to stop talking and hating it. “And the beach. We went to the beach a few months back. I’m not real fond of the beach and the sun but it was good.”
Something strange happens to his face. It glimmers with intensity. Dare I even say… passion?
“Did you have a good day?”
I swallow. “At the beach?”
“Yes.”
I open my mouth to answer but no words come out. Folding my hands at my back, I rub my tattoo.
Simon is watching. Waiting. I don’t understand the way that he seems to be so hung up on the answer. Whatever that might be.
Finally, I lie, “Yes. It was great.”
I hope for him to catch me in my lie but he doesn’t. He stays silent.
“Okay, well,” I say, loudly. “I have to go. I –”
“I’ll drop you off.”
“Oh, you don’t have to. I can just call a cab.”
“No.” He shakes his head, ready to walk to his car. “Come on.”
“No, seriously, it’s okay. It’s like more than an hour going back to the city. And –”
“Then it’ll be more than an hour.”
Simon is waiting for me like he really won’t move from his spot until I do.
Damn it.
I don’t want to spend upwards of an hour in the confines of his car. The car I’ve only seen on the other side of the black gates of Heartstone. One day when I didn’t have much to think about, I thought about his stupid car, the leather seats and windows fogged up by questionable activities.
It’s actually one of my dreams to make out with him in the backseat of a car like a normal, horny teenager. Or was.
Shaking my head, I start to walk. And to hide my frustration, I thrust my hands in the pockets of my jacket, like he usually does.
We drive back to the city in complete silence. Yup. Not one word.
Simon is staring at the road like if he moved his eyes even for a micro-second, we’d crash and die. His hands are in a perfect ten and two position on the wheel.
God.
He makes me so mad with his stupid rule-following and precision. And the fact that he hasn’t even looked my way once since he opened the door for me like a complete gentleman and we took off.
Whereas me? I’ve been throwing him all the glances that I can, without being obvious. But you know what? I stop there. I won’t make any conversation, not until he does first.
Damn you, Beth. Damn you for giving me hope.
The rain has started to come down heavily now, and when the car comes to a stop, I literally jump out of it, feeling all kinds of caged in and frustrated. Even the cold rain doesn’t do anything to bring down my heated agitation.
I throw the door closed, ready to walk away when I realize I never even told him my address, let alone the address of the bookstore I work at. But I’m magically standing in front of its yellow awning and the glass front.
How did he know –
“Are you happy, Willow?”
His voice makes me jump and halts all my thoughts. I dart my gaze to him and I have to tilt my neck up to look at his face.
He’s standing much closer, rivulets of rain streaming down his thick, gorgeous hair and eyelashes. The strands are stuck to his forehead and neck and when the water sluices down his soft mouth, I want to reach up and drink it down.
Like I’m thirsty and I’ve been that way all my life.
I sweep my drenched bangs away from my forehead. “Yes.”
I wait for him to do something. Say something. Again, catch me in my lie.
His jawline turns harsh, his
eyes become dark, but then it all flickers away and he steps back.
As fucking usual. Looking down at my boots, I shake my head.
God, I’m so stupid.
What did I think? That seeing me today will change him and he’ll tell me he was lying that day? That he loves me?
Sighing, I look up with a smile on my face; smiling is the key.
“Have a good life.”
I take a step back too, trying not to memorize the way he looks right now. Pounded by the rain. Tall and stoic, almost grim. And handsome. A dream come true.
Then I spin around and leave.
I charge through the glass door of the bookstore where I’m supposed to start my shift. Christian, the new guy, is standing behind the counter with his suspenders and hipster glasses. He looks a little startled at my abrupt entrance.
“You and me.” I stab my finger at him. “We’re going on a date. Tomorrow. Got it?”
His eyes are wide and confused. “I have a b-boyfriend.”
“I don’t care,” I snap. “I’m moving the fuck on. And you can’t stop me.”
“I-I’m not –"
Without listening to him, I march over to the bathroom in the back and burst into tears.
I never thought I’d be sad about my father dying.
I certainly never thought I’d shed tears. Not after refusing to talk to him more than in passing for years. Especially not after refusing to see him, while being in the same town and fixing his house. He was there all along, upstairs, being cared for by his nurse but I hardly ever stopped by his room.
My father didn’t want to live in a facility. He was too proud for it. He didn’t want people to know that a brilliant psychiatrist like him was slowly forgetting how to tie his own shoes and if his wife was dead or alive.
I hired the nurse because I didn’t want to pack up my life in Boston and move back home to take care of him myself. I thought he deserved to die alone like my mother did.
But he didn’t. I was there with him in his final moments.
Medicine Man Page 30