I remember being shocked. I remember thinking it was a trick to lull patients into a false sense of security, so they stay here forever or admit to things that aren’t true. Namely, that they are crazy. Now, I’m thankful for the warmth.
I turn around to face Dr. Blackwood when I hear the click of the door being shut. Suddenly, all the sounds, chatter and murmurs of the hospital, are gone. There’s complete silence. Like we’re in a bubble. A vacuum, maybe.
The air seems thicker in here, with a distinct scent. I can’t quite figure out what it is but it’s pleasant. Not like the moldy and bleach-y smell of the rest of the hospital.
It fills me with… happiness.
Dr. Blackwood is still by the door, standing tall and large, his hands inside his pockets, his rich, dark hair brushing against the collar of his shirt. I wonder what we’re waiting for when I realize his face is ducked and his eyes are glued to my bunny slippers. Inside the soft haven of my footwear, my toes curl.
“Can we get started?” I ask, feeling self-conscious.
Without lifting his face, he shifts his gaze to me. I wish I was good at reading people but I’m not and I can’t tell what he’s thinking. But I do notice that his eyes are glinting. Or maybe it’s the light shafting through the windows. Today’s a bit sunnier than yesterday; I hate it. But at least I might get to go outside and feed my pigeons.
He nods and walks to the desk. “Sure.”
I nod back, wiping my hand on my black yoga pants. My t-shirt says, “Snuggle this muggle.” I thought I needed something cozy today.
I’m about to take my seat when I notice something at the desk. Something green and in a plastic cup, placed exactly where I’m supposed to sit.
My lips part on a small breath and I look up at him, standing by his chair, composed as ever.
“Is that… a lime jello?” I manage to ask in a hoarse, compressed voice.
“That is what the label says, yes,” he replies, coolly.
I narrow my eyes. “Why’s there a lime jello where I’m supposed to sit?”
At this, I notice something twitch. His lips.
There’s a very, very small smile on his lips as he bows his head again before looking back up, and his hair gets caught up in the sunrays. I’m almost stunned to see that it isn’t all black; there are slices of rich chocolate brown in there.
“Are you always this suspicious of snacks?” he asks.
“Only when they are given to me for no reason. And by a doctor, no less.”
“You have something against doctors?”
Say no. Say no. Say no.
I offer him a tight smile. “Yes. Especially psychiatrists. Not to mention, psychologists too. I think they’re wacked.”
Then the sound I heard yesterday echoes around the room. His chuckle. It’s short and sharp. Such a burst of bright sound that I don’t even regret outing my true feelings about people like him.
Dr. Blackwood shakes his head once, a small lopsided smile lingering on that soft mouth. “Yeah? How’s that?”
“They spend their days figuring out the crazy. It’s clearly not because they want to help people.”
“Clearly.”
I let his sarcasm go. “It’s because there’s something wrong with them. Who wants to spend hours upon hours sitting on a couch, analyzing the shit out of insanity? Insane people.”
“I sit in a chair.”
I throw him a mock smile. “Whatever. Doesn’t make you any less wacked.”
“Noted.” Then he shrugs, keeping his eyes on me. “Well, I owed you, and your friend – Rachel, is it? – said lime jello is the way to go.”
Right.
Stupid, freaking Renn. I still haven’t forgiven her for throwing me under the bus yesterday.
But that’s not important right now. What’s important is that he forgot Renn’s name. I mean, I knew he would. I knew it. And it pisses me off. How dare he forget my BFF’s name?
“Renn.”
“Excuse me?”
“Her name’s Renn,” I inform him.
“Right. I apologize. I’m not very good with names, apparently,” he says in a tone that’s laced with both self-deprecation and arrogance, somehow. Like he’s apologizing but not really apologizing.
“You remembered my name.”
As soon as I blurt it out, I wanna take it back. I wanna find those words in the air – the thick, scented air – and shove them back inside my mouth.
This is what happens when you talk too much. You say the wrong things. I was supposed to be calm and cool and a cucumber.
Now I can’t stop thinking about the fact that he did remember my name. In fact, I still can’t get over the way he said it, like that name really suited me. Not to mention, he remembered the whole nonsensical conversation from yesterday.
For an unknown reason, all of this makes me flush and I look away from his penetrating eyes.
He’s not supposed to affect me this much. I’ve always hated doctors with their judgmental looks and God complexes. But not like this.
“I had a weeping willow in my backyard while I was growing up,” he says after a few seconds, and I shift my focus back to him. “Broke my leg on it when I was ten. Not an easy thing to forget.”
“What were you doing up on the tree?” I ask, despite myself.
It’s so hard to imagine Dr. Blackwood doing something fun like climbing a tree. In fact, just by looking at him I can say that he never, ever did anything carefree or impulsive. He’s too severe, too intense for that.
Too straight-laced.
“Trying to impress someone with my athletic abilities,” he murmurs, his eyes somewhere off my shoulders. Like there’s a portal to the past behind me.
“A girl?”
His eyes come back to me. “Yeah. Kind of.”
“Did you? Impress her, I mean.”
“I think so, yes.”
I want to ask if she was pretty. I don’t know why. It’s a stupid thought. Shouldn’t even enter my mind. But it did, and now I’m even more agitated.
I look at the lime jello, and the plastic spoon beside it, and almost lunge for it. If I’m eating, then I’m not thinking about him climbing trees to impress a girl.
Things boys do for pretty girls and not for girls like me. Not that he’s a boy or anything. He’s thirty-three. A man. A man much older than me.
“Good for you,” I congratulate him on impressing this unknown girl who may or may not have been pretty, and march to the chair, pull it out, and drop down in it before plucking the jello from the table and digging into it.
I shovel a mouthful of it in before looking up at him and raising my eyebrows. “Shall we?”
He studies me for a beat before taking his hands out of his pockets, pulling out his own chair, and sitting on it way more gracefully than I did.
Rolling the chair forward, he opens a file, probably filled with notes on me and my sessions and hits a few keys on his laptop. He’s getting my entire medical history together.
I hate that.
So I look at something else. The watch strapped to his wrist. It’s one of those large dial ones with a brown leather band, which make him look even more severe, manlier. Older.
“It says here that you have trouble falling asleep?”
I swallow my lime jello. “Yes.” Then, “No thanks to your stupid meds.”
He looks away from the chart and at me. “Stupid meds.”
I try to stay quiet. I really do.
Four seconds later, I blurt out, “Yes. Stupid meds. They are ruining my life and my sleep. Thank God, I’m not throwing up anymore. I’m pretty sure I lost an organ last week while you guys kept saying that it will pass.”
He waits a second, all silent and studying me. “It did pass, correct?”
Damn it.
I stab the spoon at my jello. “Not before I lost one-fourth of my liver. It came right out of my mouth.”
�
��It will grow back.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Liver. It exhibits regenerative properties. Meaning, it can grow itself back. But let me see what we can do about your sleep.”
He’s laughing at me; I know that. Although his expression is very smooth and serious.
Narrowing my eyes at him, I ask, “What exactly are you going to do about it?”
“What do you think I’m going to do about it?”
“Sing me a lullaby?”
Closing his laptop and the files, he puts them aside and laces his fingers together. This time there was definitely a crease on the side of his eyes. “Yeah, singing. Not my forte. Let’s try some medication first.”
God, why does he have to be so… unruffled?
“I don’t want your meds. I told you they are ruining my life,” I say in my bratty tone.
I didn’t even know I had that tone until right now.
“This one will save your life, I promise,” he says. “And fix your sleep.”
Fix.
There’s that word again. The look in his eyes shows he’s doing it on purpose. Jerk. I do want to come at him with a snappy statement, but I won’t.
Don’t engage the enemy. Well, not more than what you already have.
I eat more lime jello and look away.
“Tell me about the night of your eighteenth birthday.”
The question jolts me, and I pause mid-swallow, glancing up at him. At his gorgeous, ice-cold, expressionless face to see if he’s kidding. Or maybe he didn’t speak at all and I’m hearing things.
Crazy people hear things, right?
Bringing my lime jello to my chest, almost hugging the tiny cup, I gulp whatever I had in my mouth. “I’m sorry?”
“What happened that night?” he repeats.
I see his lips move. With my own eyes. Meaning I’m still sane enough to not hear things. Though for the first time in my life, I wish I weren’t.
Swallowing, I wedge my plastic spoon in between the green jello and put it back on the desk. There was a tiny tremble in my fingers but I’m not focusing on that. I bring my hands back to my lap and clasp them, tightly.
In a calm tone, I say, “It’s all there in my chart.”
There. Nice and polite.
I’m proud of myself.
“It is. But I prefer to hear it from you.”
“Well, Dr. Martin and I, we’ve already had this conversation. And I talk about it with Josie all the time,” I lie.
Dr. Martin talked about it and I listened but never spoke. And Josie and I, we don’t talk about it all the time. I mean, she tries to, but I ignore her.
Basically, all I’ve done is ignore this conversation and rightfully so. I don’t wanna talk about it. Why don’t people get that? Why do they think they have a right to poke and prod into my psyche like this?
Across the desk, he’s cool, composed. Almost sprawled in his chair. Like this is his domain, which it is but he doesn’t have to flaunt it. “That’s excellent,” he rumbles, dryly. “That you talk about it. But I’m not Dr. Martin or Josie. Why don’t you tell me what you told them?”
Without my volition, my eyes flit over the contents of his desk. There are mountains of files on either side of his workspace. A pen holder. A closed laptop. His phone. A desk phone, again a throwback from the 90s. A crystal-clear paperweight.
The last one’s the most interesting one. It’s the object I can use to do the most damage. I blow on my bangs as I stare at it. If I snatched it off his desk and hurled it at him really quickly, what’s he gonna do? He wouldn’t have time to stop me. I’d be really fast.
And I’m already locked up. He can’t lock me up twice, can he?
As if he knows what I’m feeling, Dr. Blackwood picks up the paperweight and rolls it in his palm. There’s something on his face that’s meant to provoke me. That does provoke me. A slight arrogant, knowing smile as he plays with the object. Like he’s almost daring me to do something about it.
Fucking Voldemort. The lord of everything evil and dark, according to Harry Potter, of course.
“You like it?” he asks, watching me carefully with shrewd eyes.
“Yes. Very much.”
“Yeah? I got it as a present when I graduated med school.”
“How touching.”
His slight smile broadens, stretching his pink lips, making him look so classically handsome and appealing and… devilish, that I want to throttle him.
Happy thoughts.
Peaceful thoughts.
“It is.” He nods, setting it down, out of my reach. “Though I can’t say I’ve ever met anyone so interested in it before. But then again…”
He trails off and I know he’s done it on purpose. He wants me to ask. I decide that I won’t give him the satisfaction.
I won’t.
I will not.
My clasped hands are digging into my lap. My knuckles have probably formed dents on my thighs. I grit my teeth but still, the question flows out. “Then again, what?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you.”
My breath catches in my throat. “I-I’m sorry?”
“It’s in your file.” He raises his eyebrows. “Your therapist at the state hospital wasn’t very happy with you.”
My cheeks heat up.
“Though, I really want to know something,” he says, thoughtfully.
Sniffing, I ask, “What?”
He cocks his head to the side. “Did you really destroy her charts?”
I squirm in my seat. Curse him for bringing it up. I’m pretty sure he’s going to judge me and be condescending. It’s not like it hasn’t happened before. Everyone has already lectured me about it, including my mom in her phone call yesterday. About my supposed refusal of treatment.
But the thing is, I’m not like that. I’m not aggressive or prone to fights. I’m not real proud of all the things I’ve done to avoid talking. All I want is to be left alone.
All I want is peace.
“Why?”
“People can exaggerate sometimes. I tend not to believe everything I hear. And everything I read.”
I wasn’t expecting him to say that. No one has said that to me or given me the benefit of the doubt. They just assumed I did it because that biatch therapist told on me. I did do it. That’s not the point, though.
The point is that he’s asking instead of assuming.
“Yes,” I tell him, feeling bad.
I’m searching for judgment or condescension. Maybe some sort of a reprimand. There’s nothing except genuine curiosity.
It throws me off. It kind of… relaxes me.
“How?”
The way he said it, how. Like he’s so baffled and he really wants to know and that just makes me want to smile. I bite my lip so I don’t give in. I don’t want to smile at the enemy. “I poured water on them.”
He presses his lips together as if he wants to smile too, but he’s not going to. “All of them?”
Damn it.
I didn’t want to have anything in common with him. But our desire to not give in to our smiles is poking holes in my hatred of him.
“All of them,” I confirm.
“You’re dangerous,” he murmurs.
Okay, I give in.
I smile, shaking my head. “You bet I am. But in my defense, I was going for her head.”
His lips twitch. “Were you?”
“Yes. She was annoying. I didn’t like her voice.”
Willow, how can I help you if you don’t help me?
College is hard. Don’t you want to go to college without the burdens of what happened and what you did?
Talk to me, Willow. I can help you.
But I like his voice. I’m not going to tell him that, though. Nope.
I shrug. “Anyway, I changed my mind and went for the charts.”
“What made you change your mind?” he asks.
>
He sits back in his chair and does something that I can’t look away from. He rubs his lower lip – his pillowy, dusky pink lip, with which he said my name in that enticing way – with his thumb, and despite myself, I follow the gesture.
Swallowing, I say, the words slipping out of my mouth, “My mom.”
“What about her?”
“I thought she wouldn’t like it. She, uh, worries about me a lot.”
“Why’s that?”
His question makes me look away. Good thing, too. I don’t want to be obvious that his inconsequential gesture is captivating me.
“I don’t know.” I shake my head and clear my throat. All of a sudden, emotions are filling up my chest; it happens when I think of my mom.
“I mean… I know,” I continue. “She loves me, and I’m her only child. So yeah, she worries.”
Poor Mom.
“What about your dad?”
“He’s not in the picture,” I say, swallowing again. “I don’t think he even knows about me.”
“Why not?”
Shrugging, I stare at my bunny slippers. My mom bought them for me before coming here, actually. She bought everything new: new toiletries – they let you bring your own as long as the packages are brand-new and never been opened before, new clothes, as if she was sending me off to college and not to a psychiatric facility.
I remember the way she showed them off, all the new, shiny things she bought for me. So I could go and spend six weeks of my life, locked up and trapped.
“I came out of a one-night stand. My mom met this man in France and they hooked up. She was on a business trip.” Then I find myself adding, “My entire family is like that. They don’t need a man, you know, to complete them. They are already complete. They achieve all their goals and dreams and… well, they are pretty fucking spectacular. They were born complete, actually.”
Bunny slippers are making me cry for some reason, so I focus on him. He’s listening to me with such attention, I feel goose bumps rising on my skin.
“And you weren’t? Born complete, I mean.”
Medicine Man Page 6
