Simon jumps out after me, all frowny and upset. “What the fuck, Willow? It’s cold. Either get back in the car or get inside your building.”
He is right. It is cold. I’m only wearing a thin pink sweater and my jacket is in the car. But I don’t care. I have to ask him something.
I crane my neck and look at his drenched face. “Do you know why I love the rain?”
“Willow –"
“Because it reminds me of second chances. It makes me think that if this ugly world can be pure after a heavy shower, I can be pure too. I can get all the chances that I want.”
When he asked me for a chance, I wasn’t even reluctant. Every beat of my heart wanted to give him all the chances he wanted.
Maybe it’s stupid to trust someone this much but I do. I’ve always trusted him. I’ve always believed in him. It’s the way he carries himself, with such confidence. It’s the way he cares about people, with such passion.
It’s the way he looks at me, with such intensity and tenderness. He’s always looked at me that way, even when he was keeping parts of himself aloof. That’s what made me believe back then that he loved me too.
He puts his large hands on my arms, rubbing them, instantly warming me in my sweater. “Willow, what –”
“Will you marry me?”
There. I asked him.
I’ve been meaning to ask him this… well, ever since we left my mother’s house.
I know. I know that we just started dating, like, two months ago. We haven’t even jumped back into sex yet. And it was my decision to take it slow. Imagine that.
But every time he comes to my door to take me out, right on the clock, and every time he listens to me when I’ve had a bad day or reminds me about my pills like I could ever forget, or every time he talks to me about his bad day, it makes me think that we’re meant to do this forever.
Every time he opens up about his past a little more, telling me how his mom’s favorite color was red – I definitely know that woman in the photo is his mom, or that she was the one who taught him to climb trees – I now, know that the girl he mentioned in our first appointment, the one he was trying to impress with his tree-climbing abilities was his mom, he immerses me even more in his life.
I even got to see his house, the house he was fixing while working at Heartstone. He hired people to fix it for him and it’s on the market now. He found himself a nice apartment here, in the city, instead.
I put my hand on his chest and go up on my tiptoes to kiss his parted lips. “Will you? Marry me, I mean.”
It was supposed to be a small peck on his wildly breathing lips, but he winds his arms around my waist and crushes me to him. My breasts flatten against his hard chest and he thrusts his tongue inside.
Sighing, I let him mold me to his body and invade my mouth.
I’m his, anyway. He can do whatever he wants with me. Just as I start to kiss him back though, he pulls away.
“No,” he growls.
“What?”
“My answer,” he pants, staring into my eyes, “is no.”
Gasping, I sputter, “What… why… why not?”
“Because it shouldn’t be your question. It should be my question. I should be asking it.”
I can feel his chest punching into mine with his out of control breaths. His erratic breathing rhythm is messing with my rhythm, and I shove at him.
“Then why haven’t you?”
He looks at the sky as if he’s exasperated. “Because, Willow, you’re young. You’re so fucking young. And you’re impulsive.”
I glare at him, though it’s hard to do that in the rain. “Are you saying I’m not your type?”
Simon cups my cheek, tilting my neck. “I’m saying that you’re asking me to marry you and you haven’t even said it yet.”
His rainy, musky smell is driving me wild. God, I want this man with every cell, every single atom in my body, and he’s saying no to me.
“Said what?”
“That you love me.”
I’m taken aback. “I… I haven’t?”
His laugh is humorless. “No.”
I know he tells me every day. I know that. That’s the best part of my day. He says it right when he’s about to leave me for the night and go back to his apartment. I take those three words and sleep with them under my pillow. Well, after I make myself come with his name on my lips.
But I didn’t realize that I hadn’t said it yet. I say it to myself all the time.
Oh my God, does he not know?
His expression is a little ticked off, and I realize that maybe he’s been waiting for me to tell him all this time.
Idiot. How can he not know?
“Maybe I haven’t said it yet because…” I search for words. “Because what I feel for you is more than love. It’s... it’s happiness. You make me happy, Simon. I mean, as much as I can be. I know you said that I could do whatever I wanted to. I could be happy, if I wanted to. You said that I don’t need you for that. And maybe that’s true. Maybe I would’ve been happy someday. Maybe my smile would’ve reached my eyes. But I would’ve always, always looked for you. I would’ve stopped laughing just to search for you because I would’ve wanted to share it with you. But more than that… I would’ve wanted to share my tears with you. And you know what, even if I were crying and you were there, my world wouldn’t look so dark. So bleak. I would find some sliver of happiness even when I was sad. My mind wouldn’t be able to get my heart down because you were with me. Don’t you know that already, you moron? That’s, like the biggest, most gigantic thing anyone could ever do for me. You make my sadness not so… sad.”
I’m crying now. He knows it, even though it’s raining, and you can’t tell. He can always tell, though.
My hero.
“Fuck, Willow. Stop talking,” Simon groans against my lips.
Of course, I don’t listen. “I love you seems so little for what you are to me, Simon. But I do. I love you and I wanna be your wife. Even though I ruined everything for you.”
“Stop talking, Willow.”
The Heartstone Incident wasn’t only bad for me. It was bad for him, too. Simon hasn’t gone back to work because this time the rumors are worse. There’s a hint of truth to them. He says he doesn’t want to go back to work – not yet, at least – and he’s focusing on writing a book about bipolar patients and their care.
Not to mention, he’s spending some time in therapy about the issues relating to his mom’s suicide, and how he spent his childhood taking care of her.
But what if they never take him back? The lawsuit has been settled by Mass General, but what if this time around, even without the legal repercussions, his career is basically over?
I fist the lapels of his jacket. “I’m sorry, Simon. I can’t tell you how sorry I am for putting myself in danger and basically outing our secret. I never wanted anyone to find out. I never wanted to do that to you or to myself. I’m so sorry, Simon. I’m an idiot.”
“Stop. Talking.”
Obviously, I keep talking. “I-I know how difficult I can be. I know that. I know living with me, with someone like me won’t be a picnic. And I can’t ask anyone to do that, you know. Like, marry me and have babies with me because you never know if my babies are gonna come out like me or –”
He presses my cheeks together, almost making duck lips. “Shut the fuck up, Willow.”
I still try to open my mouth but his glare cuts me off.
When he’s satisfied that I won’t say another word, he eases the pressure off my cheeks. His jaw is working back and forth and a second later, he asks, “Are you trying to hurt me?”
I shake my head, quickly.
“Then stop fucking blaming yourself for what happened that day. It was me. I said all those things to you because I was a coward. Your love scared me so much that I lashed out. I pushed you away. But it’s over now. It’s fucking over, and the last thing I care about is
a job. I can get another one. Do you know how famous I am in the psychiatry field?”
I shake my head again.
“I’m pretty fucking famous,” he tells me. “And that’s because I worked my ass off to get where I wanted to go. Yeah, I’ve made mistakes and yes, some things take a bit longer to blow over, but whatever. I can make my way back, if I want to. Right now, I don’t care so much. I’m happy with some time on my hands and focusing on me and you. Do you understand?”
With wide eyes, I nod.
His lips twitch.
“Can I talk now?” I whisper.
“You are talking.”
I glare at him but decide to let it go. “So are you going to marry me?”
His fingers bury themselves in my sopping wet hair and he leans over me. “Are you going to have my babies?”
A quickening starts up in my belly. “Y-you want to have babies with me?”
“Fuck yes, I do. In fact, I think about it constantly. The baby-making process, I mean.”
It moves down, that quickening, way, way down in my stomach. “You’ll have to come inside me, then. Without a condom.”
“I’m looking forward to that. So fucking much.”
Actually, me too.
I can’t help the blush that overcomes my face, my body. “Okay.”
He kisses me, possessively. “Then, yes. I’ll marry you.”
Grinning, I kiss him back. “So I have some time over my Christmas break. Would you like to do it then?”
Groaning, he drops his forehead on mine. “Christ, Willow. We’re not getting married while you’re in school. You need to finish college first.”
“Why not?”
He shakes his head, looking up at the sky again. “I won’t feel so ancient, for one. And second, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but your mom will kill me.”
I grip his hair in a fist. “I don’t care about my mom. I can’t wait four years.”
Another possessive kiss. “It’s not up to you.”
I rub up against him, making him groan once more. “You like to boss me around. But you do know you’re not my dad, don’t you?”
A lustful glint enters his eyes, his hands going to my ass and squeezing the flesh through my soaked jeans. “You like to act bratty, but you do know you aren’t a little girl, don’t you?”
Before I can react to his statement and his dominating hold on my butt, we hear a couple of guys and their hooted laughter coming from behind me.
Immediately, Simon pushes me toward his car. He gets us in the backseat and shuts the door, with me sitting on his lap.
It all happened so fast that I have to take a second to catch my breath.
Panting and sprawled on him, I ask him, “Wh-What was that?”
Simon’s eyes are focused on the guys that just passed us by. He’s glaring at them. I try to look but he doesn’t let me, grabbing the back of my neck, keeping my gaze glued to his face.
“They were looking at you. Those dickheads.”
I laugh. “What?”
His jaw ticks in anger but he remains silent, making me shake my head. My ice king thinks everyone watches me like he does.
Before, he was the king of the castle, roaming its corridors to keep an eye on me, and then, he became my broken hero, looking for me in this big, bad city.
Gah. I love him so much.
“Not everyone watches me, Simon,” I whisper, tracing his stubble.
His grip flexes and he growls, “If you think that, then I need to lock you up somewhere and tie you to the bed so you can’t even go to the window.”
I rock my body against his, getting unbelievably turned on by his possessiveness. There was a time when I wanted to stay back at Heartstone, all trapped and ill, just so I could stay close to him.
And the truth is that being trapped with him doesn’t sound so bad because being with him sets me free.
Simon’s hands go back to my ass as I keep undulating against him. “Are you still gonna be this possessive when we get married over Christmas?”
He begins kneading the flesh, as he thrusts his hard cock into the juncture of my thighs. He leans up and bites my lower lip in a show of pure dominance. “No. I’m going to be even worse when you officially become mine. Four years from now.”
I laugh again, and Simon grabs my face, looking at me with such intensity that I blush. “What?”
“I… I can’t stop looking at you. I can’t… You’re so fucking beautiful, Willow. So stunning and…” He swallows. “So white and pale and like a snowflake.”
I study him with my watering eyes. That slant of his jaw and that stubborn chin, his perfect nose and those stormy eyes.
“I’m your snowflake.”
“Fuck yes, you are.”
“I love you. I love you so much, Simon.”
And then, he kisses me.
I love this man with every piece of my brain, heart, and soul.
This man who thinks I’m beautiful and a warrior. Who doesn’t know that he’s so getting laid in the backseat of his car like a teenager. And that no matter what, we’re definitely getting married over my Christmas break.
Five years later…
I’m losing my mind.
Well, not really but it feels like it. And of course, it’s happening at a birthday party.
Her birthday party, no less.
It’s not my usual bad day. At least, it didn’t start out as one. I was perfectly calm when I woke up this morning.
I opened my eyes with a purpose, a clear goal set in my head. I’d taken the day off from my job at the local high school where I work as a guidance counselor, since I had a few things to get done before the party.
Over the past few years, I’ve learned that whenever I get overwhelmed, making lists helps. It started out as an exercise for Columbia when my exams overwhelmed me. But now I use it for almost every aspect of my life.
My husband seems to find my little lists amusing and sexy, all at the same time. But that’s beside the point.
So yeah, I had my list and I was ready to face the day and the party but then she started crying.
God, the sounds she made.
They were so excruciating, so painful to hear. Her soft chin wobbled and her beautiful face scrunched up as big, fat tears streamed down her pink cheeks.
And the worst of all was that she wouldn’t stop.
No matter what I said to her, she wouldn’t stop crying. She went on and on. I tried everything. Talking to her, soothing her, playing her music, reading to her. But nothing.
I even thought of calling my mother, which in itself shows how frazzled I was. I never call my mom for help. Mostly because she thinks my life is a series of bad choices. Besides, Simon hates it if I reach out to her for things.
“You’re coming to me with anything and everything from now on. You got it?” he said to me once.
I remember being mad and, obviously, turned on by his authoritative statement. “Oh yeah? Why?”
He looked at me like I was crazy, and not the useless kind. “Because you’re mine, Willow, and I’m yours.”
Needless to say, I jumped his bones. I almost always do that when he says things like this.
But I didn’t want to bother him today. He was at a meeting with his editors that he couldn’t get out of, and in any case, he was going to be home soon for the party.
Somehow, I got her to calm down enough so she could tell me why she was crying. Turns out, it was because she’d lost her favorite toy and she couldn’t find it.
And here I thought her world was ending.
It would be a hyperbole to some but it’s a very real thing to me.
We did find her toy – a little snow owl inspired by Harry Potter – but her gut-wrenching cries knocked me off my positive mojo. I needed space and I needed happy thoughts.
All the fucking happy thoughts.
I hear footsteps, sure and confident. Hi
s.
He’s back.
My ears perk up. In fact, my entire body has perked up as I hear him climbing up the stairs and walking toward our bedroom. He knows that if I’m not downstairs, helping with the arrangements, then this is where he’ll find me.
When we moved to this house, I remember having one of my ugliest bad days. I couldn’t get out of bed. I didn’t even have the energy to breathe. The sun was burning me, sucking off all my energy. So I hid myself in here where it’s all dark and the air is saturated with his rainy smell.
He knows this is my happy place, or at least this is where I go to find it.
The door to our bedroom opens and in three short steps, he’s here. He opens the door to the closet, bringing the sunlight in.
I blink a few times, trying to adjust to the light even though I’ve only been inside for about fifteen minutes. I’m much more suited to darkness and closed spaces. But strangely, I don’t mind the sun now that it’s illuminating my husband’s massive, toned body, his dark hair, the sharp, mature lines of his face.
He’s wearing a light blue shirt that brings out his eyes. I picked it out for him this morning before his meeting. He also wore a gray tie to go with his gray suit, but he isn’t wearing the tie or the jacket right now. Probably took them off on his way back home.
He does that after a long, hard day. Like he can’t wait to rush back and relax. Like he can’t wait to be the Simon I know – warm and safe – after being all cold and professional, Dr. Blackwood.
Biting my lip, I look up at his towering form that somehow still makes me lose my breath after all this time. “Hey.”
Without looking away from me, he closes the closet door, but not all the way. He leaves it slightly open, so the sunlight can stream in. I don’t mind. He’s here; the sun can’t touch me.
Taking off his glasses – he wears them all the time now, he settles himself on the floor beside me, where I’m huddled, almost hiding between his clothes. I crawl up to him, putting my head on his chest. He gathers me in his arms and kisses my forehead. “Hey, baby.”
Medicine Man Page 33