Medicine Man

“What about her?”

“I thought she wouldn’t like it. She, uh, worries about me a lot.”

“Why’s that?”

His question makes me look away. Good thing, too. I don’t want to be obvious that his inconsequential gesture is captivating me.

“I don’t know.” I shake my head and clear my throat. All of a sudden, emotions are filling up my chest; it happens when I think of my mom.

“I mean… I know,” I continue. “She loves me, and I’m her only child. So yeah, she worries.”

Poor Mom.

“What about your dad?”

“He’s not in the picture,” I say, swallowing again. “I don’t think he even knows about me.”

“Why not?”

Shrugging, I stare at my bunny slippers. My mom bought them for me before coming here, actually. She bought everything new: new toiletries – they let you bring your own as long as the packages are brand-new and never been opened before, new clothes, as if she was sending me off to college and not to a psychiatric facility.

I remember the way she showed them off, all the new, shiny things she bought for me. So I could go and spend six weeks of my life, locked up and trapped.

“I came out of a one-night stand. My mom met this man in France and they hooked up. She was on a business trip.” Then I find myself adding, “My entire family is like that. They don’t need a man, you know, to complete them. They are already complete. They achieve all their goals and dreams and… well, they are pretty fucking spectacular. They were born complete, actually.”

Bunny slippers are making me cry for some reason, so I focus on him. He’s listening to me with such attention, I feel goose bumps rising on my skin.

“And you weren’t? Born complete, I mean.”

“No. I was born with something else.”

“What’s that?”

My eyes feel grainy, heavy, and that pile of emotions in my chest moves up to my throat. “Something more than blood in my veins. That’s why my eyes are blue.” He frowns and I explain, “No one in my family has blue eyes. No one in my family is ill either, so I’m the odd one out.”

He’s watching me.

I know I’ve given him a lot to think about. He might be having one of the best days of his psychiatrist life. I’m fucked up. I know I’ve got issues. But it’s okay. As long as we’re not talking about The Roof Incident, I’m okay.

“Not that you’d know anything about it. About being the odd one out,” I say.

“And why wouldn’t I know that?” His voice sounds rusty, like he’s talking after ages.

“Because you’re a doctor. And your dad was a doctor too, wasn’t he?” I conclude, shrugging. “So you’re like him.”

Something freezes in him. Something subtle. But I catch it. I catch the instant stiffening of his shoulders and the fact that his chair was rocking from side to side. It’s not doing that anymore, and I honestly don’t know why.

Did I say something wrong? It wasn’t my intention. Honestly, I wasn’t saying it to throw my doctor – my enemy – off.

Then, as if it never happened, his tightening and rigidity, he goes back to normal. “Not like him. But yeah, he was a doctor.”

Okay, color me curious now.

“A good one, too. From what I hear. Penny, one of the patients, she said they teach his books in med school.”

“They do.”

“So, he’s like a genius or something.”

He studies me before lowering his eyes to his desk, rearranging his pen and nodding, “Yeah. He was definitely something.”

“I like his name, too,” I say, because obviously, I can’t say that I like his name, the man sitting in front of me. And I want to keep talking about this. It’s interesting. Mostly because I don’t think he wants to talk about it.

“Alistair Blackwood. Regal and, you know, old-fashioned.”

He whips his eyes up.

My heart is beating really fast. God, it was stupid to say that, wasn’t it?

Well, there’s no way that he can know that I’m talking about his name and not his dad’s. But there’s something in his look that makes me think that he can see right through me.

Which is dangerous, actually. I don’t want him to see the things inside me. I don’t want anyone to see.

“I’m glad you think so,” he murmurs.

“I actually –”

“As much as I enjoy talking about my father,” he cuts me off with a tight smile. “I’d love to talk more about you. Tell me what happened that night.”

Looking at him, I can’t say that he enjoyed talking about his father. In fact, he downright didn’t want to talk about his father at all.

So he doesn’t like the taste of his own medicine, does he?

Fine, I’ll feed him lies, then. I’ll weave such a story that he won’t know up from down.

I stare into his eyes, at his sculpted face. His stubble looks thicker than yesterday. Sunrays hit his jaw, making those bristles look warm, almost reddish. Appealing.