“She’s stable,” Beth says, standing at my office door. “Sleeping.”
I look up from where I’m shoving files in my bag at my desk. I’m probably crushing the papers, ruining them beyond repair but I don’t really care.
This isn’t the worst thing I’ve ruined. And there are worse things that I can ruin.
“I want someone to monitor her all night. In case she wakes up,” I say, going back to my task.
She shouldn’t, however. She should sleep through the night with Trazadone. I hope she does.
I look around the scene of the crime. My office. Everything is straightened up. Staff here at Heartstone are pretty efficient. It makes me angry. Fucking furious that there isn’t any evidence of it. Any evidence of how I broke her heart.
Scratches on my neck and my jaw, a few on my biceps sting like she’s still digging her nails into my flesh, but they aren’t enough. Her blunt nails didn’t manage to break my skin and make me bleed. Like I made her bleed exactly seven days ago.
Where’s the justice in that? Where’s the justice in me going unpunished?
“You know this is it, right?” Beth says, reminding me that she’s still here. “I can’t help you after this. People are talking about what happened here. I can’t stop it.”
“I’m not asking for help.”
“You’re going to lose this job. I don’t think even Joseph can convince the board –”
I stop what I’m doing and focus on her. “Do I look like I care about this job?”
“Do you care about her?” she asks, standing right across from me, on the other side of the desk, as if we’re in a stand-off.
My hands fist around the flap of the messenger bag. “What do you want, Beth?”
“I want you to admit it. I know you’ve been spending time with her. Do you think I don’t know, Simon?” She arches her eyebrows. “I know about frequent meetings. You haven’t taken such an interest in any other patient but her.”
“Then why haven’t you done anything about it? Why haven’t you stopped me? If it were someone else, you would’ve had this conversation long ago. Right?”
She nods. “Yes, I would have. I would’ve let them go. And if I thought they were taking advantage of one of my patients, I would’ve made sure that everybody knew about it, too.”
“So why didn’t you? Why didn’t you let me go?”
Smiling sadly, she says, “Because you weren’t taking advantage of her.”
“Yeah? How do you know that? You’ve heard the rumors, right?” I cross my arms across my chest. “They say I took advantage of Claire. They say that I slept with her and when she got clingy, I told her to change doctors. There’s a lawsuit against me, remember?”
She shakes her head, analyzing me. I fucking hate when she does that. Like I’m still that fourteen-year-old kid who’s just lost his mother.
“I know you didn’t do that.”
She’s right. I didn’t. But everybody else thinks so.
“How? How do you know that, Beth? Maybe I’ve been lying to you. Maybe I didn’t tell you the whole story.”
“Because, Simon, you’re your own worst critic. You’re the height of professionalism. You’re so hard on yourself,” she says, exasperated. “You’d never get involved with a patient. You wouldn’t even dream of it, and that’s because your dad married his patient. Your mother.”
I flinch.
I try to not think about it too much. I try to not think about how my bipolar mother was hopelessly in love with my dad. And how my dad was always too busy for her.
This is where they met, at Heartstone.
She was suffering from bipolar 1 disorder, which presents itself with full-blown manic episodes that last at least seven days. Depressive episodes occur as well. It’s easier for me to break-down her illness in technical terms rather than thinking of her as this unpredictable creature going through highs and lows, without her volition.
According to my mother, she fell in love with my dad right from the beginning. She fell in love with how calm and steady he was. How hard-working and sharp-minded. And how he always seemed to know what she was going to say before she even said it.
It always makes me wonder if my mother was making it up. She was fond of stories. Because how the fuck was it that the man who knew her so well, didn’t figure out that she needed him in her life? How could he leave her alone and save the world, when his wife was fucking dying for him?
How the fuck did he not know that his absence was hurting her to the point that she ended up killing herself?
“That’s what drives you, doesn’t it, Simon?” Beth pulls me out of my head. “Being better than your dad. So yes, I know. Everyone who knows you, knows that you could never have done something like that.”
Despite myself, I’m relieved that Beth knows. I never had to tell her; she believed me right from the beginning.
Like her. The snow princess. The bravest girl I know.
But it doesn’t matter. I don’t care about the rumors, but I do care about what happened to Claire.
Because it is my fault.
“What’s your point, Beth?” I ask.
“Do you love her? Do you love Willow?”
I clench my teeth as anger and an unnatural fear grips me. “I am not my father.”
“That’s not what I asked. Do you love Willow, Simon?”
No.
I want to say it. I want to deny it. I do.
But the fucking words won’t come.
You have feelings for me, Simon. I have feelings for you, too.
I don’t deserve her love. Not after the things I said to her. Not after what I made her do.
No wonder she hates doctors.
“I don’t have time for this.” I dismiss Beth and resume packing up all the documents that I’ll need to convince Claire’s parents not to take her off life support.
“Answer me. Do you love her or not?”
I snap the messenger bag shut and almost throw it aside in frustration. “What does it matter? What do I know of love, Beth? Fucking nothing. I know nothing about love. All I know is that my mother killed herself and I was the one who found her body. Do you know that I already knew? As soon as I woke up that day, I knew. I knew she was dead. I hadn’t even seen her. I wasn’t even out of my bed yet. I knew it as soon as I opened my eyes. There was this… fucking coldness in the house. Like she was radiating it out from her body. She was almost blue. The foam had dried out around her mouth. I can’t get that picture out of my head. I can’t sleep sometimes and if I do, I’m fucking terrified of waking up.
“I didn’t even know that she was that unhappy. I didn’t know that she was planning on killing herself. Or how long was she planning it for. I knew she felt it. She felt inadequate when Dad wouldn’t come home. When he would completely disappear during her episodes. I know that. But I didn’t know her end was so near.”
Finally, I focus on her with grainy eyes. “I don’t know anything about love, Beth. All I know is what I’ve seen growing up. And it’s pretty fucking ugly. I’m pretty fucking ugly on the inside.”
I don’t even know why we’re talking about this anymore. It doesn’t matter. She hates me now, and rightfully so.
Needles freak her out, but she practically forced us, forced me to sedate her. She purposely hurt herself because of what I said and like a coward, I wouldn’t even take it back. I wouldn’t even take my words back.
She’s better off without me.
I’m ready to leave so I can drive up to Boston, but Beth’s words stop me. “Have you told him? Did you ever tell him? What you just told me, about how you found her that day?”
Breathing through my nose, I say, “Do you really think he would have cared if I told him? He went right back to work the next day. He was here for a whole week before I saw his face.”
“Simon, you need to talk to someone. You need professional help.”
A laugh rips out of me. “Are you really saying that to me?”
“Yes. I think these are the classic symptoms of PTSD.”
“Are you a doctor too now?”
“No. But I’ve been around plenty of them all my life to know these things. In fact, I’ve been married to one since long before you were born.”
“I’m fine.”
“Just because you are a doctor doesn’t mean you can’t fall sick,” she says like she’s explaining it to a kid. “You know that, right?
Sighing, I shake my head and sling my bag over my shoulders. “I have to go.”
“Are they taking her off life support?” Beth asks, knowingly.
“Yes.”
“And you’re going to do what?” She shrugs. “Ask them to not do that? Ask them to keep her going because you have this obsession with never accepting failure?”
“Are you done talking? I’m going to be late.”
“Do you really think that whatever study you’ve dug up this time is going to help her, Simon? Or are you doing this to make yourself feel better?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I’m leaving.”
Striding to the door, I snap it open, but I can’t take a step further without making sure Willow is safe. I turn around to face Beth. “In no way can this blow back on her. After this episode, she can’t leave tomorrow. No one, not the patients, not the staff, no one says a word to her. Not even you. They don’t even look at her the wrong way. Do what you have to do. Just take care of her. And… her mother. She’s going to be upset about this, but you need to make sure that she understands. What happened wasn’t Willow’s fault or her illness. She was…” Heartbroken.
And it was my fault. She went out of control because of me.
“Just make sure her mother understands so Willow doesn’t feel guilty.”
Beth has tears in her eyes and as much as I hate to see her cry, I can’t bear to be in this building. After tonight, I’m not coming back. I can’t stand the sight of it. I can’t stand the thought of walking the same hallways as my dad did.
“Do you know what your father’s biggest mistake was, Simon?”
Her words stop me in my tracks again but this time I want to hear the answer. I really do. I wait as Beth gathers her thoughts and wipes her tears.
“He let his love for her turn into a weakness. He was a great doctor, but he failed at being a man. Every time she went through an episode, he couldn’t take it. He couldn’t see her, so he stopped seeing her. He threw himself into saving the rest of the world because he knew no matter what he did, he wouldn’t be able to fix his wife. He forgot that all his wife needed from him was love and support. She didn’t need him to be perfect. She didn’t need him to cure her or fix her or make her better. She just wanted him to love her.
“You want to be better than your father? Then stop being a hero. Stop being so afraid of failing. You’re just a man. You make mistakes. Own them. Don’t run from them. Don’t run from yourself. Give yourself a chance to fall. Don’t fight failure. Fight to rise from them. Fight for your future. Isn’t that what you tell your patients? Fight. For once, fight for yourself. Save yourself. She doesn’t need a hero. She just needs you.”
That’s where Beth’s wrong.
Willow does need someone perfect. Because she’s fucking perfect. She’s a fighter. She doesn’t need someone who’s still chasing after his past and will always be chasing after it. She doesn’t need someone who can’t even accept his own weaknesses, right his own wrongs. Who gets terrified of accepting failure to himself, let alone to a room full of people like she did.
She doesn’t need someone who can’t fall asleep at night and when he does, he wakes up in cold sweats. Who throws himself into his work, in saving people because the other option is unthinkable. Panic-inducing.
She needs a true hero.
And I’m a broken one.
***
Somewhere around two miles from Heartstone, a band appeared around my chest. The farther I drive from the hospital, the tighter it becomes. Until it’s almost impossible to breathe. Until I’m almost sure I’ll have to stop and get help.
Just then, my phone rings. It’s my father’s nurse.
I manage to pick it up. “Hello?”
“Simon, it’s your dad,” she says. “He looks like he remembers. You should come see him.”