Medicine Man

I also talked with the brunette who was admitted at the same time as me. Her name is Tina and she’s bulimic. We swapped stories about our first week and how she couldn’t sleep with all the noises and the smell. And how lime jello makes her break out in sweat.

We cried about things and then, we laughed.

Yeah, there was a lot of laughing. But somehow, I doubt that I’d laugh about The Confession.

My illness might come with a prescription, but there’s no pill for heartsickness.

On top of that the problem is that I don’t have a lot of experience with crushes. I mean, I’ve had them. Obviously. But I’ve always admired those guys from afar. I’ve never approached them. They would’ve died, or at least passed out. Being approached by Weird Willow, who hung out in the back with her book and her Harry Potter t-shirts.

In my entire eighteen years, I’ve had only one boyfriend and that was because he wanted to get close to me and ask about all my symptoms; he wanted to be a doctor. When I found out about it, I dumped him. Thank God, I never told my mom about him. She would’ve murdered him for breaking my heart.

Anyway, I have zero experience with crushes, confessions, and rejections. All I know is that I’m supposed to act cool and calm. Not sure if I’m the right person for that but we’ll see.

I knock on his door, my palms sweaty. “You can do this, Willow. You’re a fighter. You can fucking do this –”

The door opens, and my words get lost in my head.

Is it me or has he grown even more handsome overnight?

His hair’s a little longer than before and the strands curl at the ends. Maybe it grew out in the two weeks he’s been here. Seems like a lifetime since I first came into this room, thinking he was the enemy.

My world turned upside down in the last two weeks and his has remained the same.

Life’s a fucking biatch, isn’t it?

He’s staring at me with the same intense eyes as he was yesterday afternoon. As if he never stopped looking at me at all. As if the few hours in between don’t matter and he’s picking up where he left off.

It’s making me nervous.

“Can I come in?”

“Were you talking to someone?” he asks, his hands inside his pockets, only his wristwatch peeking out.

“Yes.”

“With whom?”

“Myself.”

He throws me a lopsided smile and steps aside so I can enter. Though he hasn’t given me a lot of space to work with like he usually does. Meaning my arm grazes the ridge of his stomach when I pass him by and every nerve ending in my body stands taut.

How is it that I can feel this explosion of sensation all over my body and he doesn’t have a single hint of it?

It’s so unfair.

“How are you?” he asks from behind me and I turn around to face him.

He’s standing by the door, leaning against it, actually, like he has no plans to sit down. The toes inside my bunny slippers curl, for some reason.

“I’m okay.”

“How do you feel? After the group yesterday?”

I nod. “I feel good.”

“It was…” He seems to be choosing his words carefully, slowly, while being completely focused on me. “Commendable and brave. What you did yesterday. Very few people can admit their flaws even to themselves, let alone to a room full of people.”

Mesmerized.

He kind of looks mesmerized by me. Which is so, so ridiculous that I feel like maybe I’m seeing things.

“Uh, well, thanks,” I say, unsurely.

He goes silent for a few seconds and I’m waiting for the bomb to drop. He’s going to say something about The Confession Day; I know it. I can feel it. It’s coming. I tighten my body and make fists out of my hands.

You can do this, Willow. Just don’t blush too much.

“I was harsh with you,” he says finally, and I see a flicker of regret flash through his eyes.

Okay, I was totally not expecting that. I thought he was going to talk about my conduct as a patient or something.

My mouth parts as I take in a breath. A shaky breath. The truth is that yes, he was harsh, and as usual, I’ve thought about that.

The thing is that Dr. Simon Blackwood isn’t harsh. Not usually. He’s blunt and truthful, but he isn’t an asshole.

Assholes are immature. Boys trapped inside a man’s body who don’t know what to do with it. So they make everyone around them miserable, instead of just sucking it up and dealing with their problems.

This man in front of me, in his crisp shirt and wingtips, is anything but immature. He’s a man. Through and through. Mature, masculine, commanding.

Sexy.

But I’m not thinking about that right now.

“You were.” I nod. “Why?”

Exactly. Why?