Medicine Man

I don’t want it to be appealing.

“You wanna know what happened that night?” I begin. “Fine. I’ll tell you. It was my birthday and my family threw me a party at our house in the Hamptons. A party I never wanted to begin with. But hey, everyone was like, you only turn eighteen once. You need a party. So I was like, okay. Let’s do a party. I’ll be the one in the corner, getting bored out of my mind but who the fuck cares. At least my boyfriend will be there with me. So we were hanging out until I asked him if he could bring me something to drink. Like a good guy, he went. But he never came back.”

I emit out a sharp laugh. “Because he got stuck on someone’s lips. I caught him making out with one of my classmates. In my bedroom. His tongue was probably touching her tonsils. And she loved it. You know, with the way she was moaning. I got pissed, heartbroken. I thought nothing would ever be the same in my life. The angst of it almost killed me. No pun intended. So I got drunk and stupid, and I jumped.”

I don’t remember much about the jumping, itself. All I know is that one second I was on the roof and the next, I was in the air, my hair whipping against my face and wind punching my stomach. And then, nothing.

Raising my eyebrows, I keep talking. “When I woke up in the hospital, I told them everything. I told them I was heartbroken and devastated and whatnot. I told them it was spur of the moment. It wasn’t going to happen again.”

I roll my eyes. “But my mom got stressed out. There wasn’t any reason to be. There were very little scratches on my body. They’d kept me under observation overnight and I passed their tests with flying colors. The attending called it a miracle that I escaped unscathed. Instead of celebrating, my entire family looked at me like I’d been planning to kill myself for ages. For no reason whatsoever, they held me in their psych ward for forty-eight hours. So, I might have thrown a bit of a tantrum. And when I thought it was time for me to finally, go home, my mom said that the psychiatrist recommended I be sent here. Because I was unstable, and I’d benefit greatly from an in-patient program.”

Smiling tightly, I finish, “So see? I might be a drama queen and I might be ‘clinically depressed.’ But I’m hardly suicidal. What’d you guys call it? Suicidal ideation? Yeah, sorry. I don’t have any such ideation. I’m not crazy enough to take my own life. I’m not crazy enough to be here in the first place. So, if you’re half as good as they say you are, you’ll recognize the error in your judgment and let me go.”

During my fervent speech, Dr. Blackwood didn’t move at all. He didn’t even blink his eyes. He sat there, like a marble statue he reminds me of.

I almost want to reach out and touch him. See if his skin is warm like other living things or if he really is cold.

But then he moves. As if proving to me that he is, in fact, a living creature and not a museum relic.

“Crazy,” he murmurs. “You use that word a lot.”

“I didn’t know you could only use it a specified number of times.”

“I’m just wondering what you think it means. Crazy.”

“It means abnormal. Insane. Freak. Maybe you should take a look at a dictionary,” I say, licking my lip.

“It doesn’t mean anything. Not medically. Medically, it’s a waste of a word. Suffering from a mental disease does not automatically mean you’re crazy. And I don’t care about something that can’t be explained scientifically.” He tips his chin at me. “But thanks for educating me.”

A flush rises not on my cheeks but somewhere inside my body, under my clothes. I’m turning scarlet. I wanna get out of here.

I wanna get away from him.

Of course, I know crazy is a derogatory word. I’m aware of that. But I’m okay with calling myself that because if I don’t, then it means there’s something seriously wrong with me.

And that’s something I can’t accept.

“Can I go now?”

He scans my face again. “Where was your boyfriend? When you were at the hospital?”

“He never showed up. In case you don’t remember, the asshole cheated on me.”

“What was his name again?”

I take a moment to answer. I take a moment to adjust my tone, adjust my whole demeanor. “Lee. Lee Jordan.”

“Right,” he says thoughtfully, before nodding and getting up from his chair. “Thanks for your time.”

Slowly, on trembling legs, I stand up as well. I don’t reply or wait for him to say anything else. Although what he would say after dismissing me, I don’t know. Either way, I’m not taking a chance. I practically run to the door and open it.