Medicine Man

I raise my eyebrows at him.

“I was being a dick. I saw you yesterday. The first time I ever saw that house getting any visitors.” He shrugs sheepishly. “And heard you. You were talking about hospital and patient charts and cases or whatever. Didn’t mean to insult your kind, but I also kinda did. I’m Dean, by the way.”

I chuckle, despite myself – a dry sound – and rest my head against the tree trunk. “Simon. And I don’t mind. Doctors are morons, yes. They think they can save everyone. They have this God complex. They think they are heroes. They think the whole world depends on them. Like they aren’t capable of making mistakes.”

“Do you have a God complex?”

“Yeah. I do.”

“So, you’ve never made a mistake?” he asks with disbelief.

“No,” I lie, making him chuckle.

He rests his head against the tree. “I miss her.”

For some reason, I’m compelled to tell him, “Yeah. My mom died when I was fourteen.”

Dean spins his head toward me. “No way.”

I jerk out a shrug.

“What happened?”

I sigh, thinking about it.

What happened?

She was there one minute, and then, she was gone. I remember tucking her in for the night. I remember turning off the light and going back to my room.

There was a party one of my friends from school invited me to. I didn’t usually party. I never had the time to. Besides, I didn’t jell with most of the guys from my school. They kept away from me because they liked their faces and their big mouths, and I liked talking through my fists.

But that night, I was debating whether to go or not. I thought she’d looked good today. She’d been having a streak of good days so maybe I could go, blow off some steam.

But after that everything’s hazy.

I passed out in my bed and when morning came, for some strange reason, I was frantic. Anxious. I dashed to my mom’s bedroom and there she was. On the bed, the same way I’d left her. Only difference was that she wasn’t breathing.

“I can’t remember. All I remember is that a doctor was supposed to save her, but he didn’t,” I reply, hardly believing that I’m having a conversation about my mother with a twelve-year-old boy.

I haven’t talked about my mom with anyone in years.

“Were you pissed at him? The doctor,” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Did you do something about it?”

I think about not telling him, but maybe it will help in a small way, knowing someone else has felt the same. “Punched him in the face.”

I want to rip off the grass like Dean did. My hands tremble with the need. But I fist them and shove them in my pockets instead.

“Oh man, that’s awesome,” he says in awe. “I wish I could punch him too. But my dad wouldn’t be too happy about it.”

I wonder what his dad is thinking about right now. He must be freaking out. But I have a feeling if I point it out to his son next to me, this strangely rebellious boy is not going to like it.

“So, why’d you become a doctor?” he mutters after a moment.

“Because I wanted to be better than the man who killed my mother.” I look at the pouring sky. “I wanted to show him that I could do a better job than him. Save everyone.”

“Did you?”

Something moves in me. I can’t name it. Or rather, I don’t want to name it. Naming it would mean… it’s real.

I’ve failed. I’m like him, and I can’t deal with that.

I can’t deal with being like him.

“Yes. I did,” I lie again, and he smiles.

We sit in silence, after that.

“That your bike?” I point toward the red bike leaning against the brick wall.

“Yeah.”

“So what? You waiting for someone? Ran away? What?”

Dean narrows his eyes at me. “Are you gonna lecture me about the dangers of running away like a boring old man?”

This time my chuckle is louder, surprised; I can’t help it. “If you want to run away, kid, that’s your problem. Just don’t be stupid about it.”

“I’m not stupid.”

“Are you planning on going back?”

“Maybe.”

“Ah, so you’re just trying to kill your remaining parent.”

He swallows, looking guilty. “I’m not.”

I shake my head at him. “Look, either run away because you really mean it, or just don’t do it at all. Temper tantrums don’t look good on anyone.”

He glares at me for a few seconds and I want to laugh out loud.

Which is a feat in itself.

I wasn’t looking forward to today. I knew it was going to be excruciating, walking through the same hallways I’d visited as a child. I hated being at Heartstone. The smell, the walls. Nurses, techs. The patients.

Visiting Heartstone meant that my father wasn’t home, and my mother wanted him to be. So either she’d take me with her when she went to see him, or I’d go look for him in the hope that I could convince him to come home.