Medicine Man

His gaze shifts to my action and he takes a step back, clipping, “Can we talk for a second?”

I bite my lip then, feeling apprehensive, and his nostrils flare. Almost angrily, he marches a few steps ahead, without waiting for my answer.

Well, that was rude. I almost don’t want to follow him but who am I kidding?

I’m obviously going to follow him. I’ll always follow him.

And I do. We’re away from Renn and the crowd, standing under the tree, but the relief I should feel after getting out from under the sun isn’t there.

I’m uneasy. As in, extremely uneasy.

“I have something for you,” he says, all somber.

“For me?”

“Here.” He offers me my old Harry Potter book that I’d left in his office on The Confession Day. “I fixed it for you.”

I look at him, his smooth, expressionless face, and then at the book. I wasn’t even thinking about it. I haven’t been thinking about it at all. I should be filled with gratitude that he thought about me and this book, and I am.

But I’m also a little nervous. A lot nervous, actually.

Taking it from him, I clutch it to my chest, hugging it. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”

He tracks my movements, eyeing me as I hug myself with my arms, and shoves his hands down into his pockets. The hands that he put on me yesterday, of his own volition.

I can feel them over my pulse on the side of my neck. I can feel them in my hair too, fisting the strands. My heartbeat jacks up as my scalp tingles. Why is every part of my body already used to him when he’s only touched me once?

It’s magic. It’s fucking torture.

“It was a mistake.”

He doesn’t have to define what ‘it’ is. I know what he’s referring to. And I hate that. I hate that I immediately know what he means. I don’t even get the delay-time of comprehension. I can’t ease into the knowledge. I already have it.

“Was it?” I ask, my body feeling all cold and sweaty at the same time.

“Yes.” The angles of his face are sharp and defined, unforgiving. “It was a major failure on my part. It never should’ve happened. I was less than professional. It’s a line I never intended to cross.”

“But you did.”

Remorse flickers through his features, right alongside something else. Something like anger. At himself?

“Yes. And for that I’m deeply sorry.”

“You’re sorry?”

“I would understand if you wanted to take this to Beth.”

“You would?”

I’m aware that I sound like a parrot. A dumb parrot, at that. But I don’t know what else to say. What else to think other than this deep sense of betrayal.

“Yes. I made a mistake, and I’m ready to face the consequences, if I have to.”

I’m so pissed off.

God.

So fucking pissed off. While I was dreaming about his kiss, he was thinking about how much of a mistake it was. He was thinking how best to approach me and tell me that he’s sorry.

“Is this your way of apologizing?” I wave the book, the book he fixed for me.

He nods, appearing grim.

“Did you stay up at night, fixing it?”

“Yes.”

I shake my head, lowering the stupid book. I hate this stupid book. I want to take it and tear it apart. Ruin all his hard work.

“Why’d you kiss me?” I ask, gritting my teeth.

Simon doesn’t like this question. His gray eyes glint with anger, agitation almost. Tough luck. He’s asked me a ton of questions that I haven’t liked. But I answered every one of them. I wanna see if he’ll tell me the truth or if he’ll lie.

Come on, Dr. Blackwood.

“Temporary insanity,” he replies. “It was a slip-up. A momentary lapse of judgment.”

“Right.”

Kissing me was temporary insanity.

Great.

Wonderful.

It flares my anger. It flares it to the point where all I can do is smile tightly and nod. And make claws out of my fingers and dig them into the book. Stupid fucking blunt nails.

Stupid fucking book.

“What would happen if I told Beth? Would you get fired?”

Did you get fired from your last job for something like this, too?

I don’t ask that. But it runs through my mind.

And I do have the right to think that because let’s face it, I hardly know anything about him. Whatever I know is based on my feelings, not facts. I still feel guilty though. I feel disgusted at even having that doubt about him.

God, I’m a mess. And he’s a jerk.

“There’d be an investigation, if you pressed formal charges. The board would have to get involved.”

I’m trying to read his face. The sun is so bright that every nuance of it is visible. The curve of his lip, the corner of his eyes, the lines around his mouth. I’m trying to see if any of those would betray the man they belong to.