Medicine Man

His words are soft, just as his mouth is, but the intensity in them, the vibration, jolts something inside me. It shifts something.

It’s the sun. Maybe it’s going behind the clouds.

“You think I’m a warrior?” I whisper, in awe.

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

And now, I won’t hurt anymore. I won’t have to hide anymore.

I can come out.

Maybe I can really come out.

I’m safe. He saved me.

“I must be your dream come true,” I whisper to this gray-eyed hero, the fixer. “All broken and cracked.”

His thumb flexes over my cheek and I stay still. Still like I’m dead. But the heart inside my chest is beating with probably ten lives.

“I don’t dream.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have trouble falling asleep, too.”

I imagine him in his bed, trying to fall asleep at night. Tossing and turning. What kind of a bed does he have? What color sheets? Does the sleep mess up his hair, thicken his stubble?

My insomnia is medicine-induced. I wonder what his is.

“What keeps you up?”

“Recently, the never-ending repairs.”

I shake my head at him, and his eyes shift to my hair. It’s loose around my shoulders. Since it’s my only asset, I have it long and thick and going down to my waist.

Does he like it? My silvery strands?

“I count sheep,” I say instead. “When I couldn’t sleep.”

But then you fixed it, too.

He looks into my eyes. “Maybe I should try that.”

Despite everything, a small smile blooms on my lips. “Did I just cure you? The medicine man?”

He’s still tracing his thumb along the apple of my cheek. I don’t know if he realizes that. If he realizes that he’s still touching me and I’m still fisting his shirt and our chests are moving in sync. When he breathes out, I breathe in. I’m filling my tired lungs with his air.

Does he realize that?

He’s in me, now.

He studies my smile. “Maybe you did.”

“I –”

“Simon?”

Someone speaks over me and suddenly, all the coziness leaves my body.

Beth’s standing at the door, taking us in. Me almost wrapped around Dr. Blackwood. Him tracing his thumb on my cheek.

I’m frozen. Unable to think, unable to do anything.

But he doesn’t have that problem, because he steps back from me. The click of his wingtips hitting the floor as he moves away makes me jerk.

“Beth,” he says with a polite nod.

He’s all calm and composed, when I’m standing here like a frightened animal on shaky, wobbling legs.

Beth moves her eyes from him to me. “Are you feeling okay, Willow?”

“Yes…”

I want to say more but I trail off. What should I even say? I mean, we were a little too close, but it wasn’t as if we were doing anything.

Does it look bad? Standing intimately close to your psychiatrist, while he wipes your tears off? Is there no one in this whole wide world who’s ever done that?

“Good. Breakfast’s under way. You should go join the others.” She smiles, albeit with strain. “Simon, can I speak to you for a second?”

“Of course,” he murmurs.

With that, they both walk out of the room and I drop down on my bed. I want to sag and dissolve in my sheets but then I realize something.

In my unusual bout of talking, which seems to happen only around him, I basically admitted to another human being… that I’ve been thinking about killing myself since I was twelve.

The only reason I don’t do it is because I can’t take leaving something behind.

“What were you thinking?” Beth asks, angrily. “Do you have any idea what would’ve happened if someone else had walked in?”

“Why don’t you enlighten me?” I say to her, but I’m focused on the drizzle outside.

I watch it through the window of my office, annoyed, angry. Fucking frustrated.

What wouldn’t I give to walk out of here and never look back?

I knew it was a giant mistake when I took this job. And not for the reasons I thought it would be.

From the corner of my eye, I notice Beth moving closer. “Simon, this is a hospital. People are up and moving all the time. It’s a miracle no one else saw you.”

A gust of wind bends the tree, almost breaking it in half. But it snaps right back up. That tree reminds me of someone. Someone with blue eyes and pale skin.

Abruptly, I turn away from the window. “No one saw me doing what?”

“You know exactly what I mean,” she snaps. “Stop making everything difficult. I’m trying to look out for you.”

“Look out for me for what reason? I was doing my job. Or is that not why you hired me?”

She shakes her head. “You know what people will say.”

I cross my arms across my chest and shoot her a hard look. “I thought you didn’t believe what people said.”

She purses her lips and I know it’s coming. Her platitudes. I fist my hands, feeling the crackle of energy go through my knuckles.