My one bad day turns into several bad days.
Every day it’s a chore to wake up and face the routine. Every day I almost don’t go to breakfast or do my groups. Not to mention, my fucking meds are upping their game where the nausea is concerned. They tell me it’s psychological more than physiological. Meaning, it’s all in my head. And they can’t give me anti-emetics. Although, they finally give me saltines and ginger, probably to shut me up. So there’s that.
Every day I want to break down and cry or burst through the front doors and run away, or just dissolve.
But I don’t.
Because maybe, just maybe, I’m a fighter. And there’s no shame in fighting. There’s honor.
He told me that.
Dr. Simon Blackwood.
Simon.
I know I said I won’t call him by his name but I’m breaking my promise. He’s not Dr. Blackwood to me, he’s Simon.
The man who declared me a warrior. The man who makes me want to not die. The man who knows my secret.
He’s the only one.
I’ve never told this to anyone before. Not my mom. Hardly my doctors. But he knows. He knows about The Funeral Incident, where I felt such sharp jealousy, I was willing every bus, every cab, every car to come hit me on our way back home.
A week ago I would’ve been terrified that he knew that, but not now. Now, I feel peace. Almost like happiness. I know he won’t use it against me. I believe that.
I believe him.
Over the next few days, I catch glimpses of him. In the hallways, the rec room, the TV room, on the grounds. But he’s always busy. He usually has papers in his hands. He barely stops to chat with people, barely mingles with them.
Although sometimes he chats with Josie. Those times are hard. Harder than any dark days I’ve seen in the past.
As much as I want to seek him out, I’m afraid that Beth might think there’s something between us. I’m afraid that she might take it the wrong way.
She found me the day after she saw us together. She asked me how I was doing and told me that the only thing that should matter to me was to get better. Go Outside with a better understanding of myself and the things I’m battling with.
There was no mention of how she found us, and I decided maybe it’s all in my head, like a lot of other things. Maybe she didn’t even think there was something there.
For all intents and purposes, I’m his patient and he’s my psychiatrist. Well, that is, in fact, the case.
It isn’t Dr. Blackwood’s fault that his patient thinks about touching him day and night. It isn’t his fault that she dreams about him. She rubs her fingers together, trying to feel the fabric of his shirt, trying to remember the coiled strength of his chest. She wants to tell him all her secrets, show him all her dark places, and she isn’t even afraid to do that.
It isn’t his fault that I’m slowly going insane and it has nothing to do with my illness, and everything to do with him, the man who’s supposed to fix me. My medicine man.
In fact, I’m so insane that even though the sleep meds flow in my veins, I’ve gotten up every night this week in between hourly checks, and written his name on the rainy window: Medicine man.
I write his name on the misty glass and watch as the droplets drag the lines of M and N down. Like a single teardrop. When I think about him, I don’t think about my illness or hear the noises of the ward or occasional whimpers of the patients. I don’t think about how sour my mouth has been all this week.
“What are you thinking so hard about? God, you’re gonna burn holes through my book.”
Penny’s voice gets me out of my trance.
We’re at the breakfast table and when I come to, everything looks clear to me. Not dull or burning bright. Just right. The room, the people, the conversation. I’m sitting beside Renn, as usual. Vi and Penny are sitting on the opposite side. The air smells of eggs and strawberries.
Focus.
It’s back.
I can focus on these things. I can focus on the trees outside, rather than my imploding thoughts. I can focus on the stray droplets clinging to the window, the damp grounds. It’s starting to rain. Things are gray and wet and swollen and promising.
Oh my God, things are promising.
“Forget it. She’s totally out of it. She probably didn’t even hear you,” Renn mutters, plucking a strawberry from my bowl and popping it in her mouth.
I look at her. “Hey, stop eating my strawberries.”
Her eyes widen in astonishment. Then she goes ahead and plucks another strawberry from my fruit bowl, all the while watching me.
I glare at her and slide my tray out of her reach. “Get your own.”
Her lips twitch and then she grins. “Oh my God!”
“What?”
“You’re back.” She claps her hands and gives me a side hug.
Which obviously gets noticed by one of the techs, who reprimands her. Which obviously gives Renn a perfect excuse to flip the bird.
I chuckle self-consciously. “I’ve always been here.”
“Oh please. I was getting bored out of my mind. Penny was getting so fucking unbearable without your memory flash cards.”
“I missed them. They help me keep sharp,” Penny reluctantly admits.
I grin at her, feeling warm. I sometimes help her study at the library when she gets anxious about things. I didn’t know it meant so much to her.
“We all thought you were gonna be the next Vi,” Renn continues, as usual being blunt.
I glance at Vi, ready with an apology on behalf of Renn. But Vi’s grinning too. “Well, yeah, we did think that.”
That just makes me laugh.
Back on the Outside, my bad days would’ve horrified me, made me feel ashamed. But not here.
Here, everyone has bad days.
Like Penny, with her anxiety, who talks so fast that you can’t understand her. Usually, it takes a staff member to calm her down. And Vi, who goes quiet and won’t talk to you even if you begged. There was a day when she didn’t say a single word. And Renn, too. Sometimes she gets super snappy, almost as bad as Annie and you don’t wanna talk to her. It happens when she wants to purge but can’t.
I look around the room and my gaze falls on a brunette who was admitted at the same time as me. In fact, I remember seeing the same fear, same pale complexion on her face as mine during those first few days, while we were trying to get adjusted to this new place, new meds, new rules, away from the only life we’ve known. Everyone looked like an enemy then. A threat. The Heartstone Effect.
I smile at her when she catches my eyes. She looks much better now. I wonder if I look better to her as well.
Roger and Annie are huddled in the corner talking like old friends; I think it’s a good day for them. A tech is trying to get a patient from The Batcave to eat something. A girl from my floor is simply staring down at her food, looking like she’s going to cry. I think she’s having a bad day.
Everyone explodes or implodes in this place. That doesn’t mean they are crazy. Crazy is a useless word anyway.
They are my friends and I missed them too.
“So, what’d I miss?” I ask, and Renn launches into a lengthy summary of this week’s events.
She tells me about all the gossip: A couple of nurses getting into an argument. Annie and Roger might be secretly dating each other. They looked pretty cozy in the TV room last night. Not to mention, right now. Snuggling without snuggling.
“What? That’s completely wrong information. Lisa from 2F? She’s the one dating Roger. I saw them exchange looks the other day,” I point out.
“The other day was last week. Things have changed around here.” Renn shrugs, and then she’s about to say something else, something super important if her wide eyes and eager expression are anything to go by, but things sort of come to a halt when someone walks in through the doors.
A new guy.
He’s not walking in, more like swaggering in, with long, lazy steps. His hands are shoved inside the pockets of his faded jeans as his eyes run across the space. People are watching him openly, but this guy doesn’t seem to care. In fact, when he makes eye contact with Roger, he tips his chin in greeting, but Roger only glares at him and looks away. The new guy doesn’t mind.
“Who’s that?” I ask the table, still watching him as he gets into the breakfast line.
The girl in front of him turns back and checks him out from top to bottom. I can’t see what his reaction is, but the lines of his shoulders say that he’s relaxed and unbothered.
I guess everyone’s getting a little territorial with the arrival of the newcomer.
“Oh, he’s the new guy, I think,” Penny answers, staring at him as well.
“When’d he arrive?” I ask, thinking how come I missed that too.
“Yesterday,” Vi murmurs.
Once the guy’s done loading his breakfast on his tray, he makes his way to the empty tables, and decides on the one diagonal to us.
Actually, it’s not as if he decides on it by discarding all the other options. It’s like this is the place he’s been wanting to sit in since he entered the dining hall. Which is curious because, well, he turned to face the room, his eyes going to the empty table he’s occupying right now, and then his eyes went to our table. Renn, specifically.
It’s curious because Renn wasn’t even facing him. She was focused on stabbing her breakfast while this new guy kept his eyes on her, with a very tiny micro-smile as he walked to the chair and plopped down.
“Do you know him?” I ask Renn.
She stiffens, but questions innocently, “Who?”
“You know who. Why’s he staring at you?”
She plops a piece of fruit in her mouth and shrugs. “How do I know why he’s doing what he’s doing?”
I frown at her, completely confused. “What?”
“What?”
I open my mouth and close it, and open it again. “What’s going on? Why are you acting weird?”
“I’m not acting weird.”
Penny jumps in. “You so are.”
Vi nods.
“Shut up. I’m not.” Renn shifts in her seat, her eyes planted resolutely away from the new guy whose eyes are pinned firmly at her.
“Why aren’t you looking back at him? He’s handsome.” I turn to the girls to get confirmation. “Right?”
Penny nods. “I mean, yeah. If you’re into dark hair and dark eyes and good bone structure.”
“Exactly.” I nod too. “He’s got good bone structure. You don’t get that often.”
Good bone structure and dark hair remind me of someone but I squash that thought because this is about Renn, not me.
“Stop it. I’m trying to eat my breakfast,” Renn snaps.
“You hate your breakfast,” Vi offers.
“Ohmigod, has the impossible happened?” Penny shuts her book and gives the conversation her full attention. “Are you not interested in a human of the opposite sex?”
“Do you want me to slap you? ‘Cause I’m not afraid to slap you,” Renn mutters, darkly.
“Hey, quit harassing her,” I tell the girls. “Renn doesn’t have to like every good-looking guy. She can hate some.”
She sits back, waving her hand at me as if acknowledging my statement. “Thank you.”
I smirk. “Yeah, so why do you hate him? Did he do something to you?” I sit up, suddenly getting serious. “Oh my God. What’d he do to you?”
The three of us, apart from Renn, focus on the guy who’s sprawled in his seat, popping grapes, watching us, like we’re a movie or something. He’s still got that little smirk on his mouth. Grudgingly, I admit that he does have good bone structure. Not to mention his hair’s all messy, strands falling over his forehead in careless abandon.
Even so, we’ll kick his ass if he did something to Renn.
“No way! Renn! You know you can complain, right?” Penny’s all charged up now.
“Yes, we can go right now,” I say, determined.
I’m ready to stand when Renn almost shouts, “It’s nothing, you crazy idiots.” At last, she looks at the new guy. “Hey, asshole. Stop staring at me. I told you I’m not interested.”
“You told him?” Penny’s confused.
So am I. “When did this happen? How much have I missed?”
The guy isn’t afraid or deterred. His smirk only grows, overcoming his entire mouth. He crosses his arms across his chest, and I see a peek of tattoos circling his biceps, under his black t-shirt.
“Tell me your name and I’ll stop,” he says in a voice that sounds lazy, just like his demeanor. Careless and reckless and all the less-es.
“My name’s none of your business,” Renn snaps.
He takes a sip of his juice and leans forward. “Yeah, I thought that too. But then, last night you came to me and you started stripping. I didn’t wanna interrupt you and ask then. That would’ve been rude,” he explains. “And the name I’ve been calling you in my head is probably turning my mom in her grave. She taught me to never objectify women. So yeah. Tell me your name. That’s the least you could do after interrupting my sleep.”
To say that we’re all shocked is an understatement. The tables around us have gone quiet. Well, they weren’t talking much to begin with because mostly everyone has been focused on the new guy. But still. Now, the place has gone completely silent, or rather the pocket in which we’re situated has.
Penny’s gaping. Vi’s pressing her lips together to keep from laughing out loud. And well, I’m the same way. Because the impossible has happened. Renn’s blushing. She’s gone as red as her hair.
That’s totally making her angry, though. Because her eyes are flashing. She might have even growled too.
“I never…” She breathes deep. “Never, ever came to you, you pig!”
He chuckles. “Right. It was a dream.” He spreads his palms as if apologizing charmingly. “Forgot to mention that. But it doesn’t change the fact that I’ve seen you naked. You might as well give up your name.”
Renn growls some more.
I can’t stop anymore. I laugh and so does Vi. Penny’s not far behind. All around, people are chuckling too. The new guy’s enjoying himself, I think.
Just to mess with my BFF, I call out, “Renn. Her name’s Renn.”
Renn whips her eyes to me. “How dare you? You’re supposed to be my friend.”
“What? He just wanted to know your name.” I shrug, chuckling.
Penny raises her hand in the air and I raise mine, and we mime high-fiving each other since we can’t exactly do the act.
The new guy tips his chin at me and I nod. For some reason, I like him. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s so easily and so thoroughly managed to rattle Renn, and he appears more or less harmless.
“I’m Tristan,” he says with a satisfied glint in his eyes.
“I don’t care,” Renn shoots back.
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means give it time. I kinda grow on people.”
“Why? Are you fungus?”
This makes him chuckle again. “Yeah, I like you, Renn.” He runs his fingers through his hair. “You’re gonna make my stay very interesting.”
She flips him the bird before turning away.
A second later, Vi murmurs, “I wonder what he was calling you in his head.”
Penny snorts.
Vi grins.
And I just laugh.
Maybe I don’t have magic in my veins and I’m not at Hogwarts. But I’m at Heartstone. I have friends who care about me and who missed me while I was trapped inside my head.
And I have a man who calls me a fighter and saves me all in the same breath.
So I am in a good place, I think.