Medicine Man

by Saffron A Kent

  With the book in his hand, he straightens up and throws it at his desk, making me wince.

  “You know my secret,” I whisper, tired of this charade.

  “That’s the problem, isn’t it? That it’s a secret.” A vein is popping on his temple. “That you suffer in silence. That no one knows you’re imploding. Not one person knows what you’re going through. Not your mom, not your family. Why’s that?”

  “I don’t –”

  “Why’s that, Willow? Why’s it so hard to tell the people you love that you’re suffering? That you need help. Do you know how many people just don’t say anything? Do you have any idea how many people keep quiet, never ask for help? Do you know what happens to them?”

  He grabs my elbow, bringing me flush to his body, making me gasp with how hard he is. How forceful. How the lines around his mouth and eyes are stretched taut.

  “They die,” he spits out. “They fucking die. Because they think no one cares about them. Because they think they don’t matter. That somehow, it’s their fault that they are suffering from a disease, so they should just get it over with. But it doesn’t get over with, does it? Because when they die, they don’t die alone. They kill people by leaving them behind.”

  “I’m –”

  “You don’t want to leave anyone behind, do you, Willow? But you’re ready to die, aren’t you? You’re so fucking ready for your secrets to kill you one day. Isn’t that right?”

  I shake my head, feeling the pinch of his fingers on my arm. “N-no… I…”

  “You think it’s your fault. You think your mom should’ve had another daughter. Why? Because you’re ashamed of your illness. You’re ashamed of who you are.” His chuckle is so harsh, it reverberates inside my own body, inside my own soul.

  “You’re ashamed that every day you have to fight to stay alive. You’re ashamed that you have to fight at all. So you lie. You lie every chance you get. To your family, to your doctors. To yourself. You lie because you’re a goddamn fighter. And instead of being proud of yourself, you’re fucking ashamed.”

  Simon’s hazy. I guess it’s the water leaking from my eyes. It’s like I’m watching him through the rainy window of my room. The window where I write his name at night and watch the letters flow like rivers.

  My throat is choked up, and I don’t think I can breathe for a long time. I don’t think I can even stand, my legs are shaking so badly. My entire body is shaking so badly.

  He lets me go and steps away from me like he can’t stand to be close to me. Like, he can’t stand to touch me.

  “No, Willow. I won’t go out with you. I will not go out with my patient. And that’s what you are. My patient.”

  As I stand there, I feel like he sucked all the energy off my body and I have none left. Not even a drop.

  But somehow, someway, I find the will to blink my eyes and clear my vision. He’s there, tall, dark and classically handsome, with eyes the color of my favorite clouds.

  Formidable and unapproachable.

  And thundering.

  ***

  I don’t remember walking out of his room or walking down the hallway. I don’t remember splashing cold water on my face and leaning over the sink. But I’m here. In the bathroom and now, I’m staring at my pale, wet face in the mirror.

  Oddly, I’m very numb. I’m thinking about the routine ahead of me. I’m thinking I could either go to the library and help Penny with flash cards, or I could watch TV with the others. There’s also an option to go to the rec room. Maybe I should ask for more ginger tea because suddenly, I feel nauseated.

  A knock comes at the bathroom door. It’s a tiny space with black and white retro checkered tiles, and barely any room to stand in.

  “Willow, you okay?”

  Hunter. I know his sleepy, thick voice.

  It must have been close to twenty minutes since I shut myself in here. They probably need to chart my location.

  I close the tap and wipe my face and open the door.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  He studies me carefully. People are always doing that, aren’t they? They are always studying me, trying to decide if I’m telling the truth or what?

  “You sure? ‘Cause it looks like you’ve been crying.”

  Hunter manages to sound both angry and concerned, and I chuckle, surprising myself. I didn’t think I had it in me. Not right now.

  “I have been, yes.”

  His frown gets bigger. “Did something happen? You want me to tell the docs?”

  “No.”

  My non-answer answers are messing with his patience; I can see that. “Willow, I’m gonna have to ask you –”

  “If I want to harm myself? If it’s a bad day?”

  I don’t know why I said that but I did, and it seemed to have surprised him and apparently, me too.

  “Well, is it?”

  “Yeah. It’s a bad day and I do want to harm myself a little,” I admit truthfully. “But I’m not gonna do anything about it. Not today.”

  Days spent on the Inside = 28

  Days left to spend on the Inside = 14

  Days since The Confession Day = 2

  He never touched me.

  He could have. But he never did.

  The day I hugged him, he didn’t hug me back. He didn’t even move a muscle except to wipe my lone tear off. Even then, he only used his thumb.

  When he grabbed my elbow in his office, calling me a liar, it was only to drive his point home. It was in anger, not in desire.

  Simon Blackwood never touched me more than necessary. More than what was required.

  Touch.

  All the other senses can satisfy only so much. You want to touch. With your hands, your mouth, your tongue. It’s like an itch, very similar to my symptoms. You constantly think about him. You constantly think about touching him, his skin, his hands, his hair, the stubble on his jaw, his strong chest, the grooves of his stomach, his tree-trunk thighs.

  You touch yourself in frustration, in desperation, in lust because you can’t touch him.

  Touch is everything. Touch is the litmus test of attraction.

  Simon never touched me. Not that there was any other indication that he liked me back but I just like to torture myself with re-thinking, re-analyzing. Re-everything.

  “Willow?”

  Someone calls my name and I look up. I’ve been toying with my nails. I trimmed them this morning under the watchful eyes of a nurse. Sharp objects. You can’t have them. Not on the Inside.

  I’m in the reflections group right now. It happens at the end of the day where we discuss if we stuck to our goals – the ones we set for ourselves at the beginning of each day. It’s basically to keep track of the things we’re doing every day to be able to lead a functioning and stable life when we leave here to go Outside.

  “Would you like to contribute? What was the goal that you’d set for today?” Ellen, the therapist who conducts these meetings, asks.

  We’re in a big circle, about twenty of us, and Ellen is the focal point. I want to go with something simple, straightforward like, I tried a new yoga pose today – only because Renn’s been on my back to do some exercise – or I read a few chapters of this self-help book. I lost my Harry Potter on The Confession Day and I have no plans to go retrieve it. Or I can say something about my art therapy project that I tried to finish.

  Clearing my throat, I sit up. “I, uh, my goal was to…” I clear my throat again. “To live. When I woke up this morning, I decided to live. And not give in.”

  I’m looking at Ellen but I’m not really looking at her. My eyes are unfocused. I always thought that if I said these words out loud, something would happen. Something drastic. Horrible. Something life-altering. I thought people would look at me like I’m a ticking timebomb. Like I’m thinking of killing myself right this second. Like I’m not fighting with every breath that passes my lips.

  Bu
t nothing happens at all.

  Nothing outward, at least. Whatever’s happening is happening inside of me.

  “That’s basically my goal every day,” I continue. “I mean, mostly. Sometimes I’m okay. I think of coffee or my classes, you know, when I was Outside. Or the new Harry Potter t-shirt I wanna buy. There’s this online store that I absolutely love. They have great stuff.”

  I lick my lips and collect my wayward thoughts. “But some days it’s hard to think about anything else other than… dying. Disappearing. Dissolving. For as long as I can remember, I was always that weird kid who people talked about. Nobody wanted to be friends with me. It hurt, and I retaliated in my own ways, but it was okay. My family’s great. They all love me. Very much. Especially my mom. She brought me up by herself. And because I’m the baby of my family, they worry a lot. Maybe too much. And I always wanted to not make them worry.”

  The Funeral Incident was the first time I ever really realized that something was wrong with me. Something terribly, horribly wrong. Before that death was an abstract concept, but after the funeral, death became so real. Like, a dream. A vision.

  In my visions, I’m always wearing a long white, sleeveless dress that gets stuck to my body during my fall, outlining my breasts, my stomach, and my thighs. I see my mouth falling open but not to scream but to absorb the air, the sky. My arms are always wide open too like wings, but they are not there to keep me flying, they are embracing the glory of the fall.

  Wiping my nose with the back of my hand, I keep going, still unseeing, focused on something inside me. “I was diagnosed with clinical depression at the age of fourteen. My mom was so shocked. Heartbroken. I was too. I mean, it’s not pretty listening to the doctor analyzing you and giving you meds and whatnot. But it was okay because I knew. I knew the reason behind my weirdness. I remember my mom taking some time off from the store to be with me. I guess, she thought I needed the support. I have a feeling she needed it more than me.

  “I always thought it wasn’t her fault that I was this way. Nobody wants their baby to be born this way, you know. Everybody prays for a healthy baby. A happy baby. It’s not her fault that I’m ill. That I’ve never been happy. I mean, I’ve been happy, of course. But it just never lasts. So yeah, I always thought it’s not her fault that I’m fighting this battle. She’s given me everything. All the love, all the comforts. It’s me. Things are wrong with me. She shouldn’t get the brunt of it. So I hid. I always pretended to be okay. I never talked about all the stuff inside me. I never thought it could help. I mean, they can’t magically cure depression, right? I always thought my mom was already going through the effects of my diagnosis. I didn’t want to add to that.”

  There’s silence. No one’s saying anything. I feel like I’m talking extremely loud, but I can’t stop. I have to get all of it out now.

  “I’ve been lying for a long time. Sometimes I think that’s all I know. Lying, hiding, pretending. Six weeks ago, I attempted to kill myself. I jumped off the roof of our summer house in the Hamptons. It was my birthday. Birthdays have always been hard for me. It makes me the focus of attention. It requires a lot of pretending. There’s, uh, a lot of laughter and noise and just happiness. I’ve always had trouble with them. Anyway, on this birthday I don’t know what happened. It became too much. I couldn’t stop myself. I’d been feeling low, very low for weeks. Maybe the whole pretending became too much? Maybe it was the big birthday, the milestone, eighteen? I don’t know what it was but I just couldn’t do it anymore. In fact, the party was supposed to be a double celebration. I’d gotten an acceptance letter from Columbia. They gave me a scholarship too. Everything was perfect. Except me. My mind.”

  I see the roof in my head. The edge. The perfect summer night with all the stars. I resembled the pale moon. Even so, its meager light irritated me. The breeze scraped against my body. God, I wanted relief. My head was exploding. My world was ending. Or at least it felt that way.

  I wore a dress that day, a summer red dress. My cousin had insisted. She told me to stop dressing like a kid. I was eighteen. I was officially an adult. A woman. She even put red lipstick on me.

  “But I didn’t die, obviously.” A few people chuckle, and I finally smile. “When I woke up in the hospital, I was terrified. I thought my secret was going to be out. My mom… I’ve never seen her that way. She was devastated. She didn’t even look like my mom. She looked dead. Like, I’d killed her. She didn’t know what she’d done wrong. It petrified me. It fucking scared me that I’d hurt her. That my defective brain fucked everything up. I did what I always do: I lied.”

  I sigh and bite my lip. “I made up a story. I told her that I had a boyfriend and that I was keeping it a secret and well, he cheated on me. I told them I was heartbroken and a little tipsy and jumping seemed like a good idea at the time. I thought if I lied, my mom wouldn’t blame herself, for not doing enough, for missing the signs, whatever. And I think I also lied because… because I wasn’t ready to accept that there was something wrong with me. That I needed help. Serious help. I always thought that if I took the meds, went to see my psychiatrist for regular check-ups, pretended everything was okay, everything would be okay. The power of the mind or something, I don’t know. But my mind is a little broken so there you go. I just wasn’t counting on her sending me to therapy. So my plan kinda backfired.” I chuckle, and people follow suit.

  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-fivin
g 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.