He’s staring at something, Dr. Blackwood.

The man who thinks we have a lot to talk about when I see him next week.

He’s by Beth’s office staring at the same collages as I did when I was trying to eavesdrop on his conversation with her the day he arrived here.

I’m standing at the mouth of the hallway, having just come down the stairs for breakfast, and there he is. All still with raindrops clinging to his hair and clothes.

It’s none of my business why he’s so stiff and tight while the world moves around him. Nurses are laughing. Techs are walking up and down the hallway with files. A few patients linger here and there. I see the girl from my floor, a pretty blonde, pacing up and down. A tech is trying to calm her. She gets agitated every morning before breakfast, but I don’t know why.

I should be avoiding all conversations with him, and yet, I find myself walking toward Dr. Blackwood.

Why? Because I’m curious. Super curious about him.

“Hi,” I greet him, facing the collages, trying to see what he was seeing. “Interesting photos, aren’t they?”

I feel him turning toward me. “Interesting shirt.”

I face him, then. All the earlier stiffness is gone from his body. He’s cool and unaffected. If I hadn’t seen him looking at the pictures with such severity, I wouldn’t ever have guessed that he was capable of such a reaction to something.

His eyes are on my t-shirt before he comes to look at my face. But I still feel his gaze there, on my chest, very close to where my heart is along with some… other things. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t focused on them. I mean, that would be ridiculous.

Right?

Even so, I feel like my lips are drying out and I’ve got this weird tingling in my chest.

“Were you looking at something in particular?” I ask.

He shoves his hands down his pockets. “Do you always wear t-shirts with one-liners?”

Something makes me fold my hands at my back, and my spine arches just a teeny-tiny bit. But he keeps his eyes firmly on my face. Not that I wanted him to move them or notice… my assets. But still.

“You don’t like to talk about yourself much, do you?” I comment, remembering how fast he closed up when we were talking about his dad.

I’ve thought about it a lot in the past few days, actually, since we had our meeting. There isn’t much to do around here. And I’ve concluded that there’s something there, between him and his dad.

“You don’t like that either,” he responds, kind of drily.

I don’t fight the smile that comes on. “So what, are we kindred spirits?”

“I wouldn’t go so far as that.”

“Good. Because I can’t imagine the horror.” I lean toward him, slightly. “Of us being similar, I mean.”

Squinting, he nods. “Right. Because you don’t want to be similar to someone who’s – what was it – wacked. And psychiatrists are that, aren’t they?”

“You know it.”

A small smile appears on his lips at my answer, and I already know that it’s a rare thing for him. Smiles and chuckles. Laughter.

Like they are for me.

God, he’s making it very hard for me to hate him.

I want to hate him. Trust me.

I’m aware he’s the enemy. I’m aware that with one signature, he can send me away, to the Outside. But he won’t. Because he’s like them, like all the other doctors I’ve known.

Although, he did fix my medicine-induced insomnia. He put me on sleep meds along with my regular anti-depressant and mood stabilizer. So at least I can sleep at night.

Not to mention, Renn loves everything about him and the way he handled her short meeting. I’ve heard nurses and techs talking about how nice he is. Some patients might still be wary of him, but I’ve seen him always be polite and courteous, opening doors, nodding, dragging out chairs. Not that he’s friendly or chatty but he’s well-mannered.

As I said, very hard – extremely hard – to hate someone who’s so fucking gentlemanly and makes me want to smile, and puts me to sleep.

Licking my lips, I look away from him and down at the t-shirt I’m wearing. It’s a light gray shirt with maroon lettering saying, On a scale of 1 to 10, I’m 9 ¾ obsessed with Harry Potter.

I tug at the hem and say, unnecessarily. “It’s from Harry Potter.”

“I figured.”

“You like Harry Potter?”

“I’m not into fiction.”

“I figured.”

He crosses his arms across his chest. “How?”

I look at him, his face, his put-together hair, his stubble. Then I move my eyes to his starched shirt, his pleated pants, his wingtips. I know I’m checking him out, unabashedly, but I have a good reason.

“You’ve got the wingtips, dude,” I say, smirking.

“Dude.”

“Man?”

“Why don’t we stick with Dr. Blackwood?”

“What if I don’t wanna call you Dr. Blackwood?” I say just to be contrary. “What if I get the urge to call you Simon?”

His name on my lips sounds fresh and new. I’ve never known a Simon before. He’s the first. I like that.

And therein lies the problem.

Just the fact that I want to say his name, means I shouldn’t ever say it.

“Well, then I’d advise counting to ten,” he responds. “That usually helps with the urges. But if not, we can talk about your urges next week.”

Urges.

Something about that word brings back the tingles in my chest and I clear my throat. “My point is that I can see my face in your shoes. They’re uber polished.”

“And that somehow doesn’t go with Harry Potter?”

“No, you don’t go with Harry Potter. I mean, look at you.” I wave my hand at him, up and down. “You’re dressed like you’re a hundred years old, even though you’re only thirty-three. All professional and uptight. No way are you cool enough for Harry Potter.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes.” I nod. “You look like some kind of a… I don’t know, old-fashioned medicine guy. Sorry, man. Medicine man.”

“Medicine man.”

“Yup. That could be your name.”

“You’ve got a thing for names, don’t you?”

My eyes widen fractionally. I’ve been caught out, haven’t I? He knows I was talking about his name rather than his dad’s at our meeting.

“Nope,” I lie.

“My mistake,” he says but doesn’t look like he believes me. “I’ve gotta get going. I’m late for Quidditch.”

With that, he turns around and walks away, leaving me wide-eyed in his wake.

Did he just say Quidditch?

How does he know Quidditch? He said he didn’t like Harry Potter. How does he know about their sport?

No. Wait.

He said he wasn’t into fiction. He never said he didn’t read the books.

Did he just trick me? After the whole don’t-give-me-your-trick-answers speech from the other day. I know I should be angry. I know it.

But I’m not.

I’m almost in admiration. He knows how to dodge all the questions. He’s a pro. Though I don’t understand what he could possibly be hiding about Harry Potter. Or his dad, for that matter.

Yup, super curious.

When he disappears from view, I face the collages. I stand where he stood. In the exact same place. I’m not as tall as he is so I have to crane my neck, get up on my tiptoes to look at the photos up top.

There are a bunch of pictures celebrating Christmas and some birthdays. I spy Beth, Hunter, Josie, Dr. Martin, and a few other people. Everyone’s grinning with happiness.

These photos don’t depict the gritty realities of staying at a psych ward. They don’t show the night sweats I suffered from during my first week because they weaned me off my old meds. They don’t show Renn’s sickly complexion when she had to purge her lunch last week, and they took her to a different room to do that. I don’t see the dark circles and hollowed out cheeks of the insomniacs, or puffy, red faces of the patients who can’t stop crying after a therapy session.

All these photos show is happiness.

In a place like this. It’s incomprehensible. Incredible.

It’s exhausting.

I’m exhausted just by looking at the enthusiasm on their faces. How do people even do it? How do people get happy and then, stay happy? It’s not supposed to be this hard, right? Life’s not supposed to be this hard.

But then, if I wasn’t clinically depressed, would I be happy all the time? Would I be positive? Would I never have bad days?

That’s the worst part of being mentally ill: you don’t know the real you because the illness and the meds fuck with everything.

There are cute little name tags under the staff members and I run through the names on all of them, until I stop at one. I have to stop at one: Dr. Alistair Blackwood.

He’s standing by a woman wearing a red dress. I’m not interested in her because Jesus fucking Christ, the man in the photo looks exactly like the current Dr. Blackwood.

So, this is the man who founded this place.

Even if I didn’t read his name, I’d still know that he was the current Dr. Blackwood’s father. He’s got the same hair, rich and dark and a little wavy. Same nose, straight and arrogant. Same jawline, same high cheekbones. The only difference is the color of their eyes. His eyes are green, while his son’s are an intense, stormy gray.

He was looking at his father. But why the hell was he looking at his dad like that? With such severity?

There’s no time to think about any of this because one of the nurses reminds me that breakfast is about to start.

Which is uneventful, as usual. If you don’t take into account that one of the patients from The Batcave had a little bit too much coffee and he was jumpy. Then I have to sit through an hour of process group with a social worker. We talk about how to deal with negative thoughts in the Outside world. Then we do art therapy for an hour.

At last, it’s time for lunch. We’re at the usual table, by the window, and I’m savoring my lime jello, moving it around my mouth so it settles in every corner of my tongue and chases away the sour taste of medicine.

A moment later though, Dr. Blackwood walks into the dining room and I forget about the meds and their sour taste.

Somehow, he’s taller than he was this morning. Taller than yesterday, even.

I have a weird vision of me somehow getting up to his broad shoulders and standing on them. I bet even with my tiny frame I’d touch the roof, the clouds even.

I have a weird vision of saying hi to him, waving my hand at him from across the room.

Ridiculous. I’d never do that.

He isn’t wet like he was this morning and his hair has settled into its place. Polished and composed. Shiny. I’m not the only one who notices the glimmer of his hair. Renn notices it too and whistles under her breath, watching his progress through the room.

“God, he’s hot. Like, legit hot. I look at him…” She trails off to a sigh. “And I just want him to be my daddy.”

I bite down on my tongue at the word daddy. The sharp sting makes me jump in my seat and waters my eyes.

Penny groans. “Ugh. I’m gonna punch you in the throat.”

Facing her, Renn grins. “Admit it. You were thinking the same thing.” Then she nudges me with her elbow under the table while I’m trying to calm down my pounding heart. “At least, our Willow was thinking it.”

“I was not!”

This only makes her giggle and I seriously contemplate carrying out Penny’s threat.

I was not thinking about that.

“Don’t call him that,” I tell her.

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Are you claiming him? Because if you are then I need to know. I don’t screw around with what belongs to my friends.”

I almost choke on my food again. “He doesn’t belong to me. It’s such a stupid way to put it. Like he’s an object.”

“Does he or does he not?”

“If I say yes, will you stop talking about him like that?”

“Yes. Pinky swear?”

She gives me her finger, so I can make the promise if I want to. I think about it a second. Fine, for a microsecond. Then, I entwine my finger with hers really quickly before snatching my hand away lest a tech notices us breaking the no-touching rule.

“He’s mine,” I say, my heart on the verge of explosion. “Don’t talk about him like that.”

Renn whoops. Penny gasps and Vi grins.

Me? I blush and look away.

Then I notice something. Every single jittery and squirming eye is trained on Dr. Blackwood. There’s not a single person in the room who’s not watching him. Myself included. Most of them are wary. Some of them are curious. All of them are chattering and murmuring. The sounds of the room have increased.

Something akin to sympathy rises in me.

For the enemy. First, I struggle with hating him and now, I’m sympathetic.

What is happening to me?

Maybe because I know what it feels like when every eye is on you. I’ve felt it not very long ago. I know what it feels like when every eye turns into a microscope, inflating you and your flaws. Every eye tries to see your cracks.

I know.

I feel like I want to claw at those eyes. Claw at those faces. Scream and kick and thunder.

But Dr. Blackwood appears cool. Extremely cool, in fact.

Nothing on his expression suggests that he even knows about the attention he commands or the sudden increase in the chatter. The scattered staff around the room has become more attentive, though.

“Good afternoon, everyone.” His voice rises above the din, crisp and loud, as he stands in the middle of the room. “I hope you’re having a pleasant day so far. Some of you’ll be seeing me in my office later today, so please don’t let me keep you from enjoying the delicious lunch. As much as I love the attention, we don’t want to offend the cooks.”

With that, he strides over to where Beth’s watching him with a motherly smile, shaking her head. There’s no other option but to watch him after he handled that so smoothly.

Again, I can’t help but think this man knows stuff. He knows how to handle being under scrutiny.

I watch him lower his head to listen to what Beth’s saying. He has his large hand on her lower back as he gives her his full attention.

Penny chides us to stop staring, and normally I would take her advice because I hate getting stared at myself. But I can’t stop.

There’s something about him that compels me to look.

And then Josie joins their group, and I wouldn’t be able to tear my gaze away even if I wanted to.

She stands beside Dr. Blackwood, almost coming up to his ears, as he turns to include her. Which is so atypical of what I’ve seen from him.

But what do I know? I’ve only known him for a few days.

A couple of seconds into the conversation, Josie cracks up at something he says, her blonde hair swaying with her laughter. I watch for his reaction. I watch to see if he’s laughing.

He’s not.

He’s smiling though. And in all the time that I’ve known him, this is the biggest he’s smiled.

I turn away abruptly and focus on my lunch. It’s none of my business how close he was standing to Josie or how big he was smiling.

We eat in silence – as much silence as you can get here – until there’s a crash at the far end of the room. It’s Annie– Angry Annie – who lives a few doors down and is prone to nightmares. From what I hear, she is known for being a little aggressive.

She’s thrown her tray full of food on the floor and is standing, her dark hair tumbling out of her bun.

“I don’t wanna eat this fucking food,” she declares angrily. “It’s fucking disgusting. Makes me wanna kill myself. And I don’t want the shiny hotshot doctor either. I want Dr. Martin.”

She takes a few steps to her right, but instantly a nurse is on her, trying to calm her down.

“No, don’t you come near me. Don’t touch me.” She’s flailing her arms at the nurse, and now techs are on her too, circling around her.

“Keep your filthy hands off me, you animals. I hate you. I fucking hate you all! I don’t wanna be here. I don’t fucking wanna be here. You killed him, didn’t you? You killed Dr. Martin? Like they killed my daddy. You fucking killed him!”

Her fists are shaking and they almost catch one of the techs on his jaw. In the next second, two of them grab her hands, making her thrash against their hold, making her scream.

It’s creating a sense of paranoia in the room. People are getting upset, as if waking up from sleep. Looking at their food, at each other. At Angry Annie.

“You killed my daddy. You killed Dr. Martin!” She’s sobbing and something clenches in my heart. A tight vise.

Her screams are causing a rush in my blood, a click in my ears. Her jerks, the shakes of her head, her rending voice – everything about her agitated state is getting to me.

This is the very first time I’ve seen Angry Annie in action. In fact, in my two weeks of being here, this is the very first time I’ve seen any kind of meltdown, where this manner of assistance is required. Usually, it’s empty threats and what now looks like playful jabbing.

For a few seconds, I’m thrown back to the hospital room where I woke up after The Roof Incident. The panic. The weight of what happened.

God, I never want to feel that again.

I never want to be that agitated again. Like I’m losing my grip on reality.

Like Angry Annie.

My vision breaks when I see other staff members pouring into the room, trying to handle the commotion. Suddenly, the row of tables is infiltrated by the navy-blue scrubs. In the middle of all the shouting and chatter, Dr. Blackwood strides over to Angry Annie.

Until then, I’ve been sitting backed up in my seat, my body all tightened up into a ball. As soon as he starts talking to her, my muscles ease up a little. I don’t know why. The more I see his soft lips moving, his jaw working back and forth, the looser I become.

My fists are open. My abdomen isn’t contracted. I’m not a rock anymore.

In the periphery I notice a nurse prepping a syringe, though and I’m panicking again.

Oh no.

No, no, no.

Not the needles. Needles are the worst.

They are the fucking worst.

Before I can think it through, I spring up from my chair. It makes a great shrieking noise against the hardwood floor, shocking me, and apparently, shocking the girls too.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Renn asks, alert.

“I’ve got to stop it. I-I can’t let her get stuck with a needle.”

Vibrating with a huge amount of energy, I’m rounding the chair when Penny speaks up. “Are you insane? Let them do their job, Willow.”

“No.”

“Willow! Get back here!” Penny hisses.

“She’s not an animal. She shouldn’t be made to feel like one,” I snap, breathing hard, my heart drumming inside my chest.

“Willow, stop. She doesn’t need your help.”

I can’t tell if that’s Renn or Penny, but I don’t care. I’m in a trance. A bubble where I can only feel anger and determination.

I have to stop it.

I need to stop it.

I need to stop them from making her feel less than human, a freak. Because that’s how it feels when they restrain you, dig their claws in your skin. They invade your personal space, get so close to you that you can see the pores of their skin, smell their sweat. You can feel the disgusting heat of their body. Their strong fingers. Their mean, ugly faces. You tell them to back off, but they don’t listen. You tell them to let you go, leave you alone, but it hardly registers to them.

You tell them you’re not crazy. You don’t need to calm down. You need to be listened to. You need to be understood.

But they all think they are smarter than you.

My thoughts are frantic, exactly like my breathing, like I’m living this moment of horror right alongside Angry Annie. Like I’m back at the hospital where people – even my mom – didn’t believe me when I told them that The Roof Incident was an accident. Where they stuck me with a needle because they thought I was too agitated, too unhinged.

The big, bad hurricane inside me gets jarred when I crash into someone. It’s Hunter.

“I need you to stay calm, all right?” he tells me with a scratchy voice.

“I need to go save her,” I tell him.

“You don’t need to save her. We’ve got it handled. She’s gonna be fine.” He tries to steer me back to the table.

“No, she’s not gonna be fine. You can’t sedate her. You can’t do this to her, okay?” I push against his hold but damn it, I can’t.

I can’t shake him off.

Tears of frustration well up in my eyes as he tells me that I need to take a calm breath.

I scratch his forearm with my blunt nails. “I don’t need to be calm. I –”

I break off when he looks at me, Dr. Blackwood, from across the distance.

His smooth forehead creases up as he scans my face and I don’t have the energy to put my mask back on. To not show how this is affecting me. Let him analyze it, if he wants. But I can’t let them do this to Angry Annie.

I shake my head once, and then I go rigid and my eyes go wide.

Over Dr. Blackwood’s shoulders, I spy the nurse advancing on Angry Annie with a syringe in her hands. But at the last second, he raises a hand, stopping the nurse.

He stopped the nurse.

He raised a hand and stopped the nurse.

He stopped it.

And just like that, Angry Annie loses some of her fight, and so do I.

I watch as Dr. Blackwood continues talking to her. Those soft, thick lips of his moving. Almost like a lullaby. Like hypnosis. Slowly, all my agitated thoughts evaporate, until I feel a jolt. A shock of some sort.

He’s touching her.

So far, he hadn’t touched her. It was only the techs, but now Dr. Blackwood puts his hand on her shuddering shoulder and bends his head toward her. Angry Annie goes completely lax.

A strand of his perfectly polished hair has flicked down to his furrowed forehead and is almost grazing the top of her head, as they stand there, huddled together.

I swallow but I can’t get my throat to work. It’s jammed up with so many emotions. Thoughts. Wonderments. So many things.

Most of all, it’s jammed up with the urge to know the feel of his touch. I want to know what it feels like to be touched by him, his hands that clearly carry some sort of ancient charm. Healing powers.

Angry Annie is completely still, entranced by him. Apart from a few sniffles, she doesn’t make any sounds, and neither do the others. Slowly, the chaos is getting under control. A lull is settling over the room.

I don’t protest when Hunter steers me back to my table.

Once Angry Annie goes easily with the techs and sits back down, Dr. Blackwood turns to face the room. “I’m aware that many of you are not happy with me being here,” he begins, and the residual chatter dies down. “And I’m also aware that some of you have been with Dr. Martin for a long time and I know change is difficult.”

He sighs, thrusting his hands into his pockets, and in the back of my mind, a voice protests at those healing hands being hidden from view.

“Now, there are two ways we can do this. One, we can fight and argue, but we all know that I’m not going anywhere. At least, not for a little while. Two, if you all promise to behave, I have something that might interest you.” He pauses to let it take effect, before continuing, “I’ll arrange for you to see Dr. Martin and he’ll tell you himself he’s doing fine and will be back to work very soon, if you promise to cooperate. You’ll finish your lunch, take your meds, do the groups and generally, stop giving the staff a hard time.” He raises his eyebrows, his hands going to his hips. “Deal?”

“And how you gonna do that?” This comes from Roger.

“Why don’t you let me worry about that?” Dr. Blackwood raises an arrogant eyebrow.

“Yeah, right. How do we know you’re not bluffing?”

With a slight smile, he dismisses Roger and runs his eyes across the room once again. “Before this day’s out, you’ll get to talk to Dr. Martin. If not, then one of you can personally…” He shoots a look at Roger. “Bust my balls in front of everyone.”

People chuckle, including Roger.

Dr. Blackwood throws out a small nod, but before striding out of the room, his eyes find me again. It’s short, momentary. His gaze. He basically flicks his eyes up and down my face, and my body, as if checking for something, as if making sure that I’m okay, as if he’s concerned about me. Though, I can’t imagine it being… right.

Right?

When he gets his answer, he leaves.

“Oh man, he’s good,” murmurs Renn in the wake of his departure.

“I like him.” Vi smiles.

“I deem him qualified enough to fix me,” Penny declares.

Me? I don’t say anything. I’m still feeling his perusal. It brought back the little tingling and flutters from this morning when we bumped into each other in the hallway.

All I do is watch him walk away, turn the corner and disappear with his wide shoulders, dark hair and healing hands.

Hands that saved someone from the needle.