Medicine Man

Oh God, what am I saying?

Although, it’s the truth. These past few days have been hard, but his words have kept me going. And saltines.

“I was doing my job,” he tells me.

Job.

Yeah.

I know. I know he was doing his job.

But the thing is… I think that I could be his dream come true.

I mean, maybe. If he’ll let me.

He’s the fixer, isn’t he? He likes to fix things. Broken houses. Broken minds. And I’m broken. In the best of ways and the worst of ways.

So this doesn’t have to be his job. I don’t have to be his job. I could be more to him. Like he’s more to me.

“I want you to fix it,” I say.

“Fix what?”

“M-my book.”

What?

I didn’t mean to say that. I meant to say me. Fix me. Or rather he can fix me, if he wants to. I can be his willing patient, his playground, his experiment. He can analyze me, feed me meds, dope me up with drugs, whatever. I can be whatever he wants me to be.

“What?” he repeats my thought out loud.

I look down at the book in my hands, which has been broken in two. “Yeah. I mean, I dropped it again and well, it kind of tore in two. Right in the middle. S-so I want you to fix it.”

“Right now?”

Damn it.

This is going completely wrong. But I don’t know how to backtrack from here. Like, how do I tell him that I want him. That I’m here for him.

How does one do that?

“I…” I lick my lips, feeling the first stirrings of unrest. “You know what, yes. It’s, uh, it’s important.”

A frown forms between his brows as he scans my face. I bet he’s trying to figure out what I really want. And he’ll do it too because apparently I can’t hide anything from him.

“From what I understand,” he begins, his arms still crossed. “You came to me because your book tore in half and you want me to fix it. Right now.”

It sounds insane; I know it. I know he thinks it too. It’s in the way he’s looking at me. His expression as always is almost blank, but his eyes are so focused, so intense and so on me, that a shiver rolls down my spine. My very sweaty spine.

Actually, I’m sweating all over. Drops of sweat move down my body like rain, and I’m both heated and chilled.

“Yes. Because that’s what you said to me. In the hallway? When we first met? You said to me that I should fix my book. So here I am. I want you to fix my book. I’m only listening to you.”

“As far as I remember, you weren’t very receptive to it when I said that.”

My first urge is to lie but I don’t want to lie. Not to him. Not after everything. “How do you know that?”

He uncrosses his arms and thrusts his hands in his pockets. “You purse the left side of your mouth when you don’t like something.”

“I-I do?”

He doesn’t say anything. Neither does he acknowledge my statement. He simply clenches his jaw slightly.

“I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that… you noticed. I –”

“I noticed because it’s my job,” he says again, like he’s informing me.

Is it me or did he really emphasize the word job?

“Or you noticed because…” I take in a deep breath and jump. “You noticed me.”

This time his clench is longer, harder. The slant of his jaw comes alive with it. “Willow, there’s a thing called patience. And I’m running out of it. Very quickly. I’m giving you one last chance to tell me exactly what you’re doing here, all right? Here goes.” His calm voice belies the force of his words. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Don’t go.”

There. I said it. The truth.

My heart’s pounding. In fact, my entire body is a heart. Every part of me is pulsing and pumping blood. My throat, my stomach, even my toes.

“What?”

I’m probably tattooing my heartbeats onto the spine of my broken book with the way I have it plastered to my chest. “With her.”

“With whom?”

“Josie.”

I’ve genuinely baffled him. I’ve never seen that expression on his face. Well, I’ve hardly ever seen an expression on him other than either blankness, irritation, or a sort of ingrained arrogance. His brows are creased with confusion and his eyes tell me he has no clue what I’m saying to him.

Does it mean he’s not going? Or maybe he’s going and it’s no big deal.

Oh, fucking hell.

Did I jump the gun?

“I, um,” I begin awkwardly. “Are you going out? With Josie?”

“Out, as in?”

I’m melting under his steady gaze. He’s destroying me, cell by cell, with the intense way he’s looking at me.

Oh God, can I just run away now? Will he notice if I leave in the middle of this very awkward conversation?