Every day, he asks me how many days are left before The Goodbye.
And every day I think that maybe today he’ll say the words that I hear every time I look at him. But it doesn’t happen.
It doesn’t happen five days away from The Goodbye.
On this day, my mom calls me and tells me that she knows about Lee Jordan. She finally went to my school to get the information of the guy because of whom I jumped, and they told her that they don’t have a student by that name.
She asks me why I’ve been lying to her. Why didn’t I tell her about my struggles, about my thoughts? She says she wants me to stay at Heartstone. She says that if I’ve been lying for so long, then I need a longer time to get better.
“You need to fix this, Lolo,” she says, crying. “How do I trust you now? How do I know that you’re telling the truth?”
I cry, too. I explain it to her. I explain my struggles and how I didn’t want to worry her, but she doesn’t listen.
By the end of it, I’m a sobbing mess.
And that’s how Simon finds me, walking out of the phone room, my eyes swollen and red. A couple of nurses find me in this state as well. He tells them he’s got me and ushers me inside his office, locking the door.
“What happened?” he asks, frowny and alert.
I try to hold on to my composure and not be a bawling baby in front of him. But the thing is that I want to be, and I know I can be. I know that. I know I can cry in front of him. Not because he’ll be my hero and solve all my problems. My problems are not solvable, but I know he’ll get it. I know he’ll listen.
“Nothing.”
“Willow.” His eyes track the line of my tears and his voice becomes even tighter. “What happened? Why are you crying?”
I wipe the salty water off. “I talked to my mom.”
My words make him move and he almost charges toward me in agitation, heaving me up in his arms. He marches over to the windows first – it’s raining so no one is outside, but we can’t take any chances – and closes the blinds. He walks with me to the couch, settles down with me on his lap and asks me what she said.
I tell him everything. I tell him how my mom finally knows about Lee Jordan and all the lies. I was going to tell her. I wanted to be there to break the news. And now, she’s all upset.
“I’m so stupid,” I whisper in his neck, crying. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I shouldn’t have lied. But I got so panicked. And she was so sad, Simon. She thought it was her fault that I jumped. So I made up a story. She’ll never forgive me. She’ll never get over it.”
“She will.”
“How do you know?”
“When she sees how well you’re doing, you’ll convince her.”
Curled up in his lap, I glance at his face, finally all cried out. “But I’ll have bad days again.”
“So you’ll talk about it.”
“I don’t want to disappoint her,” I whisper.
His arms tighten around my waist, like he’s trying to sink my body into his. “You won’t.”
Conviction in his tone makes me smile and I sigh against his chest. We sit like this, entwined with each other for a few moments. I feel him rubbing his stubble over my bangs, all calm and relaxed.
“My mom thinks I should stay here longer because I clearly have deeper issues.”
His entire body goes stiff. I don’t know why I said that. Maybe to see if he’d say something about it. Maybe he’d ask me to stay. I would’ve laughed, if this wasn’t so epically tragic.
Like Heartstone is a hotel and we both just happen to be here for a vacation. Like he’s not my psychiatrist and I’m not his patient. He can ask me to stay. He can keep me trapped inside these white walls and psychoanalyze me and feed me meds because he can’t let me go.
Because my fixer loves me.
I try to push away from him, heartsick, but he doesn’t let me get away. He grabs the back of my neck and pulls me to him, to his mouth, and kisses the fuck out of me.
Then he teaches me to ride his cock. Slow and grinding and sweaty, our skin slipping over each other. All the while our lips are kissing and our hands are roving. All the while, I’m fisting his hair and he’s plumping my ass cheeks. He’s looking into my eyes with his gray, passionate ones.
When we finish, he whispers, “How many days?”
“Five.”
I wait for him to say something. Anything.
But he doesn’t.
He doesn’t say it the day I ask him to take his shirt off in his office during our appointment. He’s looking at me like I’ve lost my mind.
In my defense, I did the entire meeting without trying to touch him once. I answered all his questions about my meds, my sleep, my group sessions, and individual ones with Josie. I didn’t even try to kiss the life out of him when he said he’d talk to my mom about my lying and explain everything to her. Not that I can’t handle her myself, but just the fact that he wants to do it makes me want to jump his bones and shower him with all the kisses.
“What? I’ve never seen your bare chest. Only flashes of it.” I bat my eyelashes as I spring up from the chair and walk very casually to the washroom. I stop at the door and crook my finger at him. “Please? I just wanna see it once.”
With hooded eyes, he stands up. But before he can take a step toward me, I chirp, “Wear your glasses.”
I go in and settle myself on the counter, ready for the show. A second later, he enters, his gaze intense and sparkly behind his specs, and I bite my lip.
God, he’s so sexy.
I widen my thighs for him and he settles himself between them. Arrogantly, like he belongs there. He does.
I rub my hands over his shirt-covered chest before going for his buttons and popping them up. He only lets me undo three before he snags the whole fabric in the back and takes it off.
“Oh my…” I breathe, taking in his naked chest for the first time.
Gosh, he works out. Well, I already knew he did but still.
Everything is hard and muscled and corded. His shoulders look like a hilly terrain, going down to his bulging biceps. I trace the green vein on his arm with my finger.
“I have blue veins,” I whisper. “I think yours are so sexy.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“You’re almost drooling. That’s how.”
“I’m not.” I squeeze my thighs around his hips, making him laugh.
I bring my fingers to his collarbone, trace the triangle of his throat before moving down to the tight arches of his pecs. I moan as I sink my fingers in his chest hair.
“You’re so big. God, I love how big you are.” Leaning closer, I smell his skin and flick my tongue around his nipple.
He jerks and his palms cage me on either side. “Yeah? That turn you on?”
“Uh-huh.” I’m now at his stomach, all ridged and grooved, slanting down in a V. “It’s like you can put me anywhere. Makes me feel so small.” And cherished.
“You are small,” he rasps, smelling the line of my neck.
His body is all tight and carved, as if sculpted by divine hands. His flesh is so warm and darker than mine. Masculine. So fucking masculine.
Paired with his glasses, he looks so old and mature that I’m creaming my panties.
His abdomen tightens when I swirl my fingers around his tight belly button and play with the thicker tuft of hair, disappearing down his pants.
I breathe over his chest and kiss his heart, or where his heart is supposed to be. It might be weathered but it’s dipped in gold. I reach up and lick the side of his neck, rubbing my nails up and down his sides.
His hands are in my hair now, undoing my topknot so he can wrap those strands around his fingers. “Are you done driving me crazy?”
Feeling super turned on and naughty, I reply, “No.”
Simon’s body ripples and he pulls my head back, looming over me. “Willow.”
I blink up at him. “What? You never let me have any fun. Please? Let me have some fun.”
He growls, his jaw working back and forth, his eyes all lusted up. “I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?”
I kiss his ticking jaw softly. “Never.”
His chest puffs out with his breath and before he can protest more, I slide down the counter and drop to my knees. I take off my shirt and my bra, baring my upper body to him. His nostrils flare as my naked breasts bounce into view.
“Willow –”
I don’t let him talk. I don’t even want him to think right now. I want to have fun.
“I’m your princess, aren’t I?”
His nod is almost imperceptible, but I notice it.
“Your princess wants to suck your cock. Won’t you let her?”
There’s this need inside of me to show him that I love him. That I want to drink down, suck off his pain, his demons. Reward him for all his hard work. For coming to my rescue even when I don’t need it. On my knees.
“Willow, you don’t –”
“I do. I do belong on my knees because I want to hero-worship your cock, Simon.”
“Ah, Jesus…” He groans, looking at the ceiling.
I guess that’s my cue. I work quickly on his belt – I’m a fast learner so it goes much more smoothly than it did the first time. Lowering his pants and his boxer shorts, I palm his hard cock. I nose his strong thighs, kissing the warm, hairy flesh.
I squeeze his dick, making him growl, making his abdominal muscles clench. And then, I lean forward and catch his shaft in my mouth. His flavor – so musky and erotic – explodes on my tongue and it’s like kissing the great depths of him.
The real him. Rather than his lips.
I swirl my tongue around the head of his dick as both my hands grip the base of his length. My mouth is getting saturated with the musky taste of him because the more I lave his head, the more I lash the vein on the underside of his cock, the more cum he makes for me.
And well, the more cum he makes for me, the more cum I make for him. My pussy is clenching and juicing up like a fruit, and I have to reach one hand down my yoga pants and slather my own wetness, widening my thighs.
“Fuck…” Simon curses, gripping my hair.
As in-experienced as I am, I still know how to draw conclusions from the things he’s done to me. The very first night I came on his cock, he asked me to smack myself with his dick. So I take my mouth off him and slap his wet shaft on my tongue, my lips.
I know he likes to see me all wet and juicy, so I even smack his dick on my face, my jaw, making myself all wet and sloppy for him. Moaning for him. Dying for him. I know he likes to lube his cock with the cream I make for him. So, I gather my moisture in the hand with which I’m playing with my cunt. Then, I take it out of my pants and rub it up and down his arousal, slathering him with my wetness.
I know he likes to be deep, deep inside of me, so I take him into my mouth again and open my jaw wide and shove him down as much as I can.
He groans above me, his entire body shaking.
God, he’s so sexy, so mine like this.
I don’t ever want to stop. I don’t ever want to stop tasting him, tasting his dark skin, drinking down his cum.
It’s mine. He’s mine.
But I have to. Because I wanna do something else too.
I take my mouth off his dick and sit up straight. Making a valley of my tits, I hug his wet, juicy cock and pump it up and down. Like I think about all alone in my bed.
“Goddamn it, Willow,” he grunts, his head bowing forward, his black eyes on me.
He’s spurting pre-cum with my every stroke. And every time I push him up, I lick that pre-cum off his slit.
I do it over and over. Pump him up and down between my tits. Lap up his cream with my tongue, suck on his head like candy. My throat, my jaw, my chest, my entire skin smells of him, is saturated with his cream.
And my vision is filled with him, horny and aroused, shuddering and groaning.
A second later, he takes over. He pushes my tits in his big hands and hugs his own dick with them, tighter, moving up and down. His knees are bent as he pumps himself between the channel I created for him. I rake my nails on his thighs, on his clenching ass, all the while staring up at him, at his turned-on face, his furrowed brow and harsh, mean mouth.
I see him tremble massively, his fingers tugging on my nipples as he comes. Quickly, I close my mouth around the end of his cock so I can swallow his cum. It’s musky and spicy and thick.
After we’re done, he pulls me up gently, cleans me up, putting my clothes back on me. He looks at me like I’m so precious. It makes me wanna blurt out all my feelings for him.
He kisses my entire face and asks, “How many days?”
I stare at his sweaty, beautiful chest before looking deep into his eyes. “Four.”
I want him to say something. Anything. Give me some indication of the future.
Say it, Simon. Say something.
He doesn’t.
His lips are sealed, and his nod is grim and tight.
Neither does he say anything when we meet in the hallway by Beth’s office the next day. He’s staring at the same pictures.
Now, I understand why these photos depict the happiness instead of the crude and gritty reality. It’s because they are a beacon of hope. This place can be dismal and lonely, and that’s why these photos are meant to shine.
I get it now.
I stand by him and say the same thing I said a long time ago. “Interesting photos.”
He faces me, and I look at him with hope. Maybe today he’ll tell me about his dad. Maybe after all this time, I’ve showed him enough. I’ve showed him that I trust him and no matter what it is, my faith in him won’t go away.
But when he speaks, his words aren’t what I want them to be. “How many days?”
“Three.”
He nods and walks away.
***
Two days before The Goodbye, there’s a storm outside. Rain batters and beats this Victorian building, and everyone is cooped up inside. The girls are in the TV room, like most of the patients. I, however, am in the library.
I still can’t believe Beth ordered all these Harry Potter books based on my suggestion. Like, wow. An entire shelf has been dedicated to my favorite series of all time. I need to thank her before I leave.
I’m standing by the shelves, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in my hands, when Simon walks in. Ever since we met in the hallway yesterday and I thought he’d talk to me about his dad, my heart has been heavy, and I have to really focus to not let it show.
Smiling is the key.
So I do that. “Hey, Dr. Blackwood.”
I’m aware that the nurse is right here, sitting at the desk in the front with a book of her own.
He walks closer, watching me in that thorough way of his. I hope he doesn’t find out that my feelings are in turmoil. That every night this week I’ve gone to sleep crying.
“Beth ordered all these books for me. I think Josie told her all the times I complained about it,” I tell him, hugging my copy to my chest.
He doesn’t look at the books, keeping his focus on me. “Maybe she did.”
I swallow, my throat filling up with things I want to say. Things I want to ask. Maybe I should let go of my stupid vow and ask him directly. Maybe he’s waiting for me to ask him.
But I don’t get the chance because he reaches out and takes the book from my hands, like he usually does when I’m hugging them for strength. Perhaps he does it because he doesn’t want me to hide from him.
“Half-Blood Prince,” he reads off the title. “I’ve never liked Harry Potter. Actually, no. It’s a lie. I did like it. I was jealous of the characters. Jealous because they all had magic. They could make things happen just by drinking a potion or flicking a wand.”
Oh my God.
Is he telling me?
Is my patience going to pay off? Does he finally realize he can trust me?
I go still. Like, completely still. I’m afraid to breathe, to blink. To make any sudden movements that might spook him.
Although I do cross my fingers and my big toes inside my bunny slippers.
“My mom made me read the first three when they came out. Well, she wanted to read them herself. I was there for the company. I just kept going after that.”
Simon’s looking out the window to our side, appearing lost, and it’s such torture to just stand here, immobile, so far away from him. But I don’t know what else to do.
“She wouldn’t go to sleep until we finished them. And I couldn’t say no to her. I could never say no to my mom, actually. She loved being outdoors. Loved the willow tree in our backyard. I remember spending my summer vacations under that tree. When I was a kid, I used to think that my mom was so bright and full of life. I thought she had so much energy. She was always doing something, going somewhere, and I was always with her. She took me everywhere, vacations, shopping, and I thought it was because she loved me.
“She did love me, but she took me with her because she was alone. Because she needed company and my dad was always busy. He was always here. At Heartstone. With his patients. And my mom…” He sighs. “Well, my mom was lonely. She waited for him. She was good at that. Waiting. And my dad was good at saying no. So that left me. I don’t know how I compared but I did everything I could. To make her feel less lonely.”
My heart’s beating so loud. Louder than the storm outside. It’s a wonder I can hear him. It’s a wonder I can understand what he’s saying.
Most of all, it’s a wonder I haven’t hugged him yet. This lonely, lonely man.
Simon’s always been a fixer, hasn’t he? Always been a hero.
He’s a rock.
But right now, he’s a brittle one. He could break any second; he’s so stiff. So devastated.
I know I said I wouldn’t ask but I think he needs this. He needs the push.
“What… What happened to her?”
Simon looks away from the window at my words, and for a second I think I’ve ruined it all. He won’t tell me.
But then, he puts the book on the shelf and shoves his hands inside his pockets. In a flash, he’s back to being himself. He isn’t devastated anymore. He’s angry. Furious, even.
“She killed herself.”
My mouth falls open as I feel the breath getting knocked out of me. “Simon –”
The look he gives me is the angriest I’ve ever gotten from him and I almost draw back in my place. “I’d like to see you in my office this afternoon.”
With that, he leaves, and all I can do is watch him do it.
Hours later, when I go to his office and see the closed blinds and hear the two clicks of the door closing and locking, I don’t feel the same satisfaction as I felt days ago.
“Simon, listen—”
“Don’t say no,” he rasps.
There’s so much anguish packed in those three words that my tears start falling. Like I’m the rain and he’s the cloud that makes me flow.
Does he really think I’ll ever say no to him? If he does, then he really doesn’t know the things I feel for him. The things I’ll do for him. The depths I’ll go to and fall in, for him.
Simon Blackwood doesn’t know anything, then.
I nod and he’s on me.
It’s okay. We can talk later. Right now, if he needs my body to feel better, then I’ll give it to him.
I become completely pliable as he lowers me down on the hardwood floor. He makes quick work of my clothes and enters me in one smooth thrust, because even agitated I’m wet as fuck for him.
It’s like my body knows he needs me right now. He needs me more than he’s ever needed me and every feminine part of me is loose to let him in.
My pussy makes cream for him so it’s easier for him to slide in. My internal muscles clench and release so he can get the maximum pleasure. My skin becomes more sensitive, softer, more pillowy so he can dig his fingers in.
I am his playground, and he can play all he wants. I’m his medicine in this moment, curing his illness. His princess slaying his dragons.
His rhythm is choppy but even then, we move in sync. I think this is the most in sync, in rhythm we’ve ever been. He’s staring into my eyes with such passion, such turbulence that I wind my legs around his waist and arch my back to let him in deeper. The hardness of the floor doesn’t even register with how hard he is above me.
Simon has an arm braced up by my head and his other is clutched in a fist in my hair. It’s like he’s holding on to me because he thinks he might drown. The look in his gaze is so lost and so horny, it breaks my heart.
I won’t let him drown; I tell this to him with my eyes. I tell him when I gasp his name. I tell him when he pants into my mouth, his brows bunched up in a heavy frown.
“Simon,” I whimper his name and he locks our mouths in a kiss.
That’s when I come, even though I wasn’t looking for it. But Simon’s kisses are orgasmic. They push me over the edge every time.
And while I’m clenching around him, he withdraws, takes off his condom and comes on my pussy and my wild curls, branding me like that first time.
Despite the waves of orgasm flashing through both of us, he pulls me to my feet. With glittering eyes, he puts his hands under my ass and heaves me up, taking me in his arms.
In his usual fashion, he walks me to the washroom and sits me down on the counter. The marble is so cold against my naked butt.
Then, he goes back out and gets my clothes. Wetting a tissue and cleaning me up, he puts me back into my clothes like I’m a child. I let him do it because I know it makes him happy, smoothing down my hair, taking care of me.
But I can’t bear the silence any longer. “Simon –”
He looks up, his eyes cracked open in a way I can’t put my finger on. “Willow, I…”
Even though he trails off, my breathing escalates. My heart races. It pounds, and goose bumps come alive on my skin.
Because for some reason I think… I think he’s going to say it. He’s going to say what I’ve been waiting for.
His chest is moving up and down, just like mine. We’re breathing as one. Me and him. I bet the looks in our eyes match too because I’m cracked open in the way he is, as well.
It makes me realize what it is I’m seeing in his expression. It’s vulnerability. We’re both vulnerable. Flayed. Bare. Naked.
And we’re both broken, in this moment. Broken and melted.
My ice king is going to say it.
He’s going to say he loves me.
“I… I –”
His words get swallowed up by the ringing of the phone and I could scream with how cliché this is. How fucking cliché and unfortunate.
A cruel joke.
“Simon, don’t. Please.” I grip his bicep, but he shakes his head and leaves me there.
Although, he can’t get to his phone on time, and I hear a man’s voice when the machine picks up the call – Seriously, what era is this? Every fucking thing in this Victorian mansion is old-fashioned:
“Hey, man. Pick up your fucking cell phone. We need to talk about Claire. Two weeks are up.”
I come out of the bathroom and I wouldn’t have thought anything of it or the name Claire, if I hadn’t seen Simon transform right in front of me.
Going all tight and icy, standing by the desk, staring at the phone. It’s so startling, his change. So abrupt and so shocking, after seeing him unravel a thousand times.
My heart’s racing but for a very different reason now and something like dread makes a home in my stomach. “Simon –”
He whirls to face me. “Get out.”
“What?”
“Get. Out.”
“But –”
“Leave, Willow.”
I don’t.
How can I? After everything. After what he told me and what he was going to tell me.
His fury rises, rises and rises, until it spills over and he lashes out, “Willow, for once in your goddamn life, will you do as I say?”
I flinch at his voice. I’ve never seen him like this. So cold and so heated at the same time. All the lines on his body and face set in stone. It cracks my heart, right in the middle. Crushes it, beats it into a pulp.
As soon as I feel my eyes watering, I do as he says.
I leave, realizing that he never asked me his usual question: how many days.