The Healer

Every so often I stumble across a lost soul in my line of work. A torn being breaking at the seams, physically and mentally. I've grown and used my herbs, oils and spices to heal the sick and the defeated for what seems like an eternity. But never have I encountered a person as enigmatic as you. I've seen a lot. Felt a lot too. The recognition of energy around someone's essence is somewhat of a specialty for me and even before you entered my home, the consumption of your desperation washed over me. My lungs were on fire the moment I opened the door for you, and so was the rest of my body when you instantly realized a spark had been lit the second our eyes connected.

But as you know, nothing is ever as easy as it seems. You were fueled by the desperation to save someone you love and I had no business in breaking you down further. I led you into my office, and sat down to hear your story, to access what kind of internal pain you were in and how I could actually help. But you wore it so beautifully, in between the strawberry strands of your hair and your emerald gaze, I got lost in what seemed like a rabbit hole of impure thoughts and a simmering joy I've never felt before. I ignore the signs you were giving me even then.

You came back for more of my healing herbs and oils every week after that and we sat and talked about how your husband had been feeling better after he started on my strict healing regime. The color pooled at your cheeks on your porcelain skin every time you talked about him. That's when I noticed you were different than the others. You didn't bow your head in shame of the love you felt for this man. You looked me straight in the eye as the passion you felt for him matched your heated gaze, equal with pride and intensity. You were fuming with rage, knowing you were going to lose him soon and you were dependent on me to save him for you. I wish you would've known that death cannot be cheated when fate is involved. I wish I wouldn't have fallen in love with you so I could've spared myself the pain of the grief infused knife that came with it.

You came back to me weeks after your husband's passing, the angelic cloud surrounding you perished and replaced by something else, something just as lethal. Lust and mischief. I no longer held the strength to restrain my feelings for you at the time. Maybe I should’ve. Maybe then, I wouldn’t have ended up where I did.

Most people can't handle the pain of losing a loved one. It's a deep rooted loss you feel in your bones, in your veins, slowly icing over the warmth you once felt in the arms of the one who left you alive and breathing to deal with the aftermath. I already knew you came back to me so I could put some color back into those cheeks, some passion in your gaze and in between your thighs. You needed me to beat for you, and I, overwhelmed by your sadness didn't have the heart to turn you away when all you wanted was to feel something again.

No words needed to be said as I began to take off your clothes, piece by piece. You were the type to let your body language do the talking for you and you were determined to get what you needed from me. You unzipped the back of my dress, letting it pool at my feet in the middle of my sun kissed living room. Your fingertips ran from my flushed cheeks all the way down to my petite breasts, your thumbs circling over my hardened nipples as I leaned down to press my lips against yours. You tasted like mint and anger and it coerced all of my reservations out of me the second your tongue collided with mine.

Our bodies pressed together until I had you pinned underneath me on my sofa. My lips left your mouth when I continued to kiss my way down your body, pausing briefly at your full and round breasts, watching you as your nipples hardened into wet peaks as I sucked and tugged on them with my teeth. Your body began to writhe for more and I continued my way down, my lips brushing against your skin until I found your wet opening and started lapping at your clit. My tongue circled around and around, your thighs trembling, your fists clenching from the pleasure.

I drank from you every night that followed until you stopped staying until morning, until you stopped coming back to me all together. I never took it personally. You needed to be healed and I had the hands and the wisdom to help you. I took you not coming back as a sign that you were cured, that I somehow brought you back to life by loving you so ferociously, by loving you with the same intensity your husband had.

And once I sensed your energy again years later, I turned around to find you with the same man you claimed you had lost. Your arms were locked, and so were your hearts from the looks of it. The lies you had told me began to tear into my impenetrable faith, forcing me to question everything I’ve done, everyone I’ve healed.

My experience with the damned and the broken didn’t prepare me for that day. The moment where I realized I’d been blinded by a lie, a whirlwind romance that didn’t belong to me.

I kept your memory in the back of my thoughts, as a precursor, a warning, a neon red sign that remind me of something I should’ve been aware of all along; just because you heal someone, doesn’t mean you get to keep them. You can still hold your breath at the sound of their name, you can still cry when missing them takes the air out of your lungs long after they’re gone.

Sometimes, the healer is the lesson. A lesson that almost always doesn’t get a happy ending. I’m not bitter that you have found yours, even though I should’ve been. I don’t wish you were mine even though I swore the words into your skin with every love bite I left on you.

My only wish is to find a soul brave enough to heal me after loving you.