Medicine Man

For this part, I fist my hands in my lap. “Lee Jordan. My imaginary boyfriend. He is not real, of course. I don’t know any Lee Jordan. I made him up based on one of my favorite books, Harry Potter. The girl he cheated on me with, Zoe? She’s real, though. She was one of the girls who always hated me. It was fun to make her into a villain.”

Finally, I come to.

I look at Ellen. She’s got a smile on her face. A sympathetic smile. A sad smile. I know about sad smiles. They taste like tears. Salty and a little sour. I’m tasting that smile right now.

“What made you tell us today, Willow?” she asks.

“Because the thing is that it’s not my fault either. That I was born this way. It’s not my fault that sometimes things get just a little bit harder. It’s not my fault that every day I fight a silent battle. I implode. I don’t make a sound. I don’t say a word. I don’t let anyone know what I’m going through. It’s like I’m blaming myself. And I don’t want to do that anymore. I told you because it’s not my fault. It’s not my fault that some days my goal is just to make it through the day. While others make plans to ace an interview or a test or go see a movie or for a walk, I make plans to just get through the day. It’s not my fault. It’s my achievement. It’s my strength that I fight. Someone told me that I’m a warrior, and that I’m ashamed of it. So this is me…” I nod, unfisting my hands. “Not being ashamed. This is me asking for help.”

I don’t know what I’m expecting after everything I said but getting wrapped up in a giant hug wasn’t what I was thinking of.

A startled yelp escapes me as Renn basically crashes her entire body into mine. Rules be damned. I hug her back. As hard as I can. I hug her as hard as I’ve always imagined being hugged. Maybe ever since I was born with more than blood in my veins.

Renn’s voice sounds teary and broken when she whispers, “I fucking love you, you know that? I always knew we’d end up being BFFs.”

Chuckling and crying, I tell her, “Thanks for talking to me that day when I first came here.”

“Eh, I couldn’t be so cruel as to not give you the pleasure of knowing me.”

I laugh. “I fucking love you too.”

Ellen says that it’s enough, and we should break up. But we don’t listen. People are getting up from their chairs, filling the room with scratching noises and murmurs. And suddenly, I’m being hugged by Penny, and then Vi, followed by Roger, even Annie and Lisa, and a bunch of other people I’ve never talked to.

I’m laughing like I’ve never laughed in my life.

Amidst all the smiling and high-fiving and Ellen and a couple of techs trying to get everyone settled, my gaze catches someone.

He’s standing by the door, among a few nurses and Josie, with his eyes on me. I don’t know how long he’s been standing here. If he listened to any of what I said.

This is the first time I’ve seen him since The Confession Day, two days ago. I want to look away, embarrassed. Again, what was I thinking? I don’t know what came over me. But there was this urgency that I couldn’t ignore.

I wanted him to know. I wanted him to know what I feel for him. I wanted him to know the truth. Maybe because my feelings for him – crush, fascination, whatever – isn’t like my illness. It’s one pure thing, and I didn’t want to hide it. I’m not ashamed of it.

And I shouldn’t be ashamed of my illness either; he was right. This was my first step toward it: admittance.

I don’t know why he isn’t looking away. Or why he’s still standing there, staring at me when there’s so many other things to look at.

But he was right about this other thing too.

He’s my psychiatrist and I’m his patient.

Just the thought of having anything between us other than medicine is foolish. Besides, I don’t even like doctors, right? I hated them. I mean, I still hate them.

Too bad he doesn’t feel like a doctor and too bad my heartsick soul doesn’t know the meaning of foolish.

So I don’t look away until he does.

I’m summoned by the ice king. Again.

My appointment with him isn’t until tomorrow so this must mean that it has something to do with The Confession.

Great.

It’ll haunt me forever, won’t it? Like The Roof Incident.

Maybe when I get out of here, I can laugh about it like I laughed about my illness yesterday. A woman in her mid-thirties, Karen, came up to me and told me about her own struggles with depression, and how it took her years to get help. I’d seen her around on my floor but we’d never chatted. I’m glad I did.