Medicine Man

Yeah, forever is right.

Renn loves Heartstone. She loves it so much that she keeps coming back.

I think this is her fourth time on the Inside. Every time she comes in for a couple of months, has the time of her life – according to her – and gets out to come back in again.

This time she’s in here because her dad is getting married and she can’t stand her new step-mother. So, in her infinite wisdom, she made herself throw up and she’s severely anorexic. When her dad found her passed out in her bathroom, he did what he always does: sent her on the Inside.

She knows everything and everyone. Nurses are her best friends. Techs can’t get over how pretty she is. Renn’s the queen bee.

I pop another strawberry in my mouth and say, “Could be the fact that you didn’t know he was married until last week.”

“Hmm.” Renn drums her fingers on her chin. “You might have a point. I like a challenge. It makes me feel better about myself if I can get an unavailable guy to like me. It’s my pathetic self-image.” She stabs her fork into a piece of watermelon. “Maybe I should somehow try to get Hunter as my escort after meals. Imagine the things I can do to him while he’s watching me with those dark eyes.”

After every meal, a tech stays with Renn for about an hour to see that she’s keeping her food down. She’s known to give them the slip and throw up every chance she gets. She’s super proud of her pokey bones and the fact that you can count all her ribs.

“Or you can shut up about it and not force us to listen to what is clearly one of the most inappropriate things ever,” Penny chimes in, glaring at her from across the table.

She’s got a book in her hands and up until this second, her eyes were glued to it and her lips were moving as she muttered the words to herself.

Penny, aka Penelope Clarke. She was the second person I talked to after I got here. Actually, all we did was say hi to each other after Renn introduced us, and Penny went back to doing what she always does: read.

From what I’ve gathered in my time here, Penny loves reading. I love reading too so I definitely get that. But her love and my love are vastly different.

For Penny, reading is oxygen. She can’t live without it. She needs to be reading something or I’ve seen her get shivery.

On the Outside, she read textbooks; she was a pre-med. On the Inside, she reads all the cookbooks that she can find in the small library. She says it’s to keep her mind sharp and active for when she gets out of here in fall. A few weeks after me.

Penny suffers from crippling anxiety with a touch of paranoia mixed in there. When she failed one of her classes, which she claims was a set-up against her, she broke down. Renn told me she tore pages out of her biochemistry textbook and ate them. Literally.

“Um, hello. How’s liking someone inappropriate?” Renn turns her focus on Penny.

“He’s a tech and you’re a patient.” Penny flicks the page angrily. “Not to mention, he’s married and older. You’re not supposed to like him.”

“Well, as Willow said, I like him because he’s married. It’s a sickness. My heart happens to beat for him, okay?”

“Oh please.” Penny rolls her eyes. “Last week your heart beat for that homophobe with homicidal ideation from The Batcave.”

“Roger isn’t a homophobe. He was assaulted by a man. Excuse him for not liking it up his ass and being angry about it!”

Penny’s ready with a retort and I’ve had it. I know if I don’t stop them, they’ll go on for hours. That’s what Renn and Penny do. They fight.

I don’t like fights. It’s bad for my inner equilibrium and everyone’s peace. And I’m the peacekeeper and the avoider of confrontation.

So I raise my arm in the air like a referee and blurt out the very first thing that comes into my head. “Simon Blackwood.”

“What?” Renn turns to me, frowning.

“If you guys stop fighting, I’ll tell you,” I say.

“You have gossip.” Renn’s eyes widen.

Shrugging, I say, “I might have some, yes.”

“Oh my God, tell us!”

Again, Penny rolls her eyes. “Really, Willow? I didn’t know you were interested in gossip. I thought only Renn was the blabbermouth.”

“Hey, don’t call me blabbermouth. Let her talk,” Renn admonishes.

“Don’t fight.” I stab my finger at both of them. When they both nod, I say, “So I heard the nurses saying that a new guy might be coming in. I mean, they didn’t sound very happy about it. Beth never told them and they’re like, nurses are always the last to find out and –”