“What… What are you…”
“I’m telling you everything. Everything that I am. Everything that’s inside of me.”
I unbutton the top three buttons of my shirt before yanking it off my body. Staring into her eyes, I put my palm on my chest where my tattoo is. Exactly like the one on her wrist. The only difference is mine is on my heart.
“So I came back again. The day you went to the beach.”
Her eyes go wide. Wide and blue like the ocean she went to see all those months ago. She grabs the counter, leaning against it.
“H-how,” she stumbles over her words, her gaze glued to the matching tattoo on my chest.
“I watched you,” I confess. “I looked through your records and I know I shouldn’t have. It’s confidential, invasion of privacy, but I-I wanted to know if you were doing okay. I drove into the city, insane with the thought of just holding you once. I thought I’d tell you everything you wanted to know, all my ugly parts, my anger, my mom, Claire. Everything. I wanted to tell you that you had the right to everything that I am. But then I saw you. You were with Renn and the rest of the girls. You were just coming out of the building where you live.”
Pressing my palm over my chest, I rasp, “You were so fucking beautiful. So white and glowing under the sun and… and my heart started beating. After days. Weeks. I followed you like some fucking pervert. You went to the beach. I saw you on the sand. You had glasses on. A hat. I know you hated being out there but you still went. You stayed as long as your friends wanted. You looked up at the sky, as if you were not afraid of the sun anymore. And even if you were, you weren’t going anywhere.”
She had a white bikini on, so virginal, so pure.
Like her skin.
Like her.
“And then, you went to the tattoo shop. I went in after you’d left. I paid the guy at the counter extra to give me the same tattoo that you had. Two Ws.”
It’s written in a thin and tiny script, one W overlapping the other.
“W-why didn’t you…”
“Because you were living. Despite everything, you were fighting. You didn’t give up. What if I came back into your life and broke you again? What if seeing me brought back all the pain of that day? I couldn’t do that to you. I couldn’t take away your one chance to be happy, to live a life. So I kept myself away. But I kept coming back. Every day since then.”
At her stunned expression, I take a step toward her. “Every morning you leave your apartment at 8:30AM. You go to the coffee shop on the corner and order a large cappuccino. You smile at the barista and he smiles back. Because he has a crush on you. He watches you when you leave. He doesn’t take his eyes off you until you have completely disappeared.”
I fucking hate the sight of him. One of these days, I’m going to break his jaw.
Another step closer to her. “Every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday you come here. When the kids arrive, you laugh. Though I can’t hear it because I am always far away, always across the street, always outside looking in.”
There’s disbelief in her eyes, on her face, along with something that doubles up my hope. Yearning.
My confession is a balm to her. She likes it. She likes the fact that I’ve been watching her.
She always loved that. Being watched by me. I was so ashamed of it, tracking her movements, searching for her, knowing her habits, her quirks.
But she loves it. And I love her.
I love her with every goddamn piece of my heart, my soul.
I reach her and cup her cheeks again, tilting her neck up. “And today I was praying, hoping, fucking dying for a chance that you’d show up. I didn’t want to believe it when Beth told me that she’d invited you. I was mad at her. I told her that she should leave you alone. She should let you live your life, but on the inside, I wanted you to come. I wanted one chance, Willow. Some indication that you can still stand the sight of me. That you can still stand to be close to me after I broke your heart.”
Her breaths are choppy, her mouth parted and I wish I could kiss it. I wish I could bend down right now and put my mouth on her, taste her lemon flavor, lick her softness. Bite it. Make it mine.
But I can’t. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Christ. I don’t know what I would do if it really turned out to be not ever.
“Willow –"
She speaks over me, “I knew about Claire. Before I came today I asked Renn. She told me about the rumors, about the lawsuit, everything. She told me not to go. She told me that you’d broken me enough. I don’t need any more grief from you. You know why I showed up?”
“Why?”
“Because I thought you’d be alone. And because I didn’t believe a word they said about you and Claire. I’m stupid, aren’t I?”
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.
I’m doing that.
I took Ruth’s advice. I’m dating.
It doesn’t matter that I’m dating the same man we talk about during sessions but whatever. I’m moving forward with him, the one who makes me happy.
He also makes my kids very happy.
By kids I mean the ones who come to the bookstore for story-time. We’re reading The Half-Blood Prince now, and I ask Simon to read with me, sometimes. He says it’s his favorite in the series, if tolerating something could be called being his favorite.
Whenever Simon reads with me, the kids get so happy. They laugh and cheer at his deep voice and the life that he brings to the scenes.
That’s what he does. He brings life.
It’s so weird and a little bit sad that he still gets surprised when some of them rush over to hug him at the end. Sometimes they even ask for an encore.
He still gets shocked when my eyes well up at seeing him with them. And when I randomly stop him on the street during our dates and kiss him, his first reaction is always a light disbelief.
It’s been a couple of months since he came back into my life and said all those wonderful things. Since then we’ve been dating.
And let me say, we’ve been dating in a very traditional, old-fashioned way where he comes to pick me up at my apartment. Simon is always dressed up, in crisp shirts and nice pants. He brings me flowers, chocolates, lime jello. We go to a nice restaurant and I let him order food for me because it makes me feel cherished. Fuck what people think.
He won’t let me drink though. Only a couple of sips from his glass.
He likes whiskey, and his favorite food is steak. No surprise there. I’ve always imagined him with a tumbler in his hands and cutting into a juicy piece of meat with his big, graceful hands. Oh, and leather. I’ve always imagined him around oak and leather.
Like right now.
We’re in his car, surrounded by expensive leather, having just come back from my mother’s Sunday dinner.
My mom and I, our relationship has improved. In the sense that I told her about my fears and insecurities.
When The Heartstone Incident happened, I told her everything, except the reason I went berserk. She knew I attacked a psychiatrist, and I was so uncontrollable that they had to sedate me. Beth offered to stay with me while I explained but I told her I needed to own up to my actions and I did.
Maybe one day I can tell her why I attacked a doctor and that doctor is also the one I’m dating now. One day I’ll tell her that this time I really did it all over a man, over something as trivial – according to her – as love. She’s not going to be happy about it.
She’s plenty unhappy with the fact that I’m dating at all. An older man and my ex-psychiatrist, no less. That’s why she asked him over for dinner and after putting it off for weeks, I caved in and brought Simon with me.
“Willow?”
I look at him when he calls my name. He’s wearing a dinner jacket that makes him look so dashing and handsome.
I smile. “Hmm?”
He tips his chin at the window. “We’re here.”
My apartment building is blurry through the rainy glass. Vague and distorted. And so not where I wanna be right now.
With a racing heart, I realize I don’t wanna go in there. I don’t wanna leave this car.
“I don’t wanna go,” I repeat my thought to him.
“What? Where?”
His voice is concerned, and it makes me bite my lip and lose my breath. He still does that to me. Still.
Every time I hear his voice roughened with concern or see his gray eyes darken with worry, I fall in love with him all over again. I feel so feminine, so fragile and so cherished that I want to crawl in his lap and ask him to fix everything for me.
And he will, or he’ll die trying.
“I don’t wanna go back to my apartment,” I whisper, studying his features.
He reaches up and turns on the overhead light, making his concern and his frown even more evident. “Why not? What happened?”
“Did you mean what you said?”
“Said what?”
“To my mom.”
His face tightens up in anger.
So yeah, the dinner was a disaster, in more ways than one. First, my mom - my entire family, actually – couldn’t stop grilling him about my stay at Heartstone and all about The Heartstone Incident. Basically, showing how overprotective they are and how I’m the baby of the family.
Simon answered the best he could without giving his part away. He hated it; I know. And that’s why I specifically told him beforehand not to reveal anything.
I already know that Simon is big on consequences and if it were up to him, he would’ve taken all the blame in a heartbeat. But we have enough to deal with right now without adding family censure to the plate. At least more than whatever is on there already.
And second, my mom didn’t make it a secret that she doesn’t like Simon for her one and only daughter. She grilled him about his intentions. At one point, she even went on about leaving me a virgin for my future, real, age-appropriate boyfriend.
That ship has sailed, Mom. So fucking sailed.
It was so painful to watch. Well, until Simon put his foot down and said, “With all due respect, Miss Taylor, your daughter is more than capable of making her own decisions. About her life and about her body. In fact, you’d be surprised at how capable she is. It’s one of the many things I love about her. Her capability. It’s also the one thing that scares me the most. Because I know she doesn’t need me. At least, not as much as I need her. I’ll always respect her decision. That being said, I won’t go down without a fight either. So unless you have more to say, let’s move on to dessert.”
Oh gosh.
This man is so swoony, isn’t he?
Now, I ask him again, “Did you mean what you said to my mom? That you’d fight for me?”
His stormy eyes rove over my face. “Always.”
My breathing escalates, and I take off my seat belt before hopping out of the car, into the pouring rain. The sidewalk is almost empty because it’s the middle of the night and the storm is something fierce.
Medicine Man Page 32