Page 12 of Fierce-Zander

“Did he get violent with you?” she asked.

“No. It’s just his eyes looked mean. Almost evil. He grabbed my hand to hold it again. It was a control thing. He pulled me to the side and he was telling me to stop being dramatic and causing a scene. Some guy saw it and I could tell he mightintervene but then made a comment about the lawyer’s office on your hall and my feet just walked right into it without thought.”

She held back her smile. “What happened after you went into the office?”

“I knew I couldn’t see the lawyer then just by walking in, but I talked to the woman at the desk and made an appointment for another day. She was so nice and let me stay there for twenty minutes until we knew Zachery was gone and then I called my mother to come get me. I stayed at my mom’s that night.”

Regan was nodding her head. “Do you feel as if Zachery is a threat?”

“No,” Katelyn said. “I really don’t, but I needed time and I needed him to understand I was serious. That brings me to finding my own place. I told him I just wanted to be done, but now that I said it...I feel a little...lost. I don’t know.”

“It’s normal to feel that way. Even though it’s what you want, you can still mourn what is lost.”

They talked for the next hour. The conversation was all over the place and she tried to rein Katelyn back in but knew they’d need more sessions and agreed to continue weekly via video calls on Katelyn’s lunch hour for the next few weeks.

When the call was done, Regan made some notes and got ready for her next call.

Robert was thirty-eight and didn’t want his live-in girlfriend and family to know he was seeking help. That going out of town was better, but he was struggling with his identity and had been most of his life.

Though she seemed to have a lot of couples recently, she was getting a nice mix.

Once the call was done, she wrote down some notes and would finish it in the morning after she listened to the recording again.

For now she was too tired and didn’t have an appointment until ten in the morning.

She shut her laptop down, put it in her briefcase. Then she locked her door and shut all the lights in the office, locking it behind her and setting the alarm again.

When she turned to leave, Zander was coming out of his office.

“Late night?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “I have lots of them. I had to come back and get my laptop. I’ll finish up at home.”

“I’ll probably do the same though I just told myself I’d do it in the morning.”

Sometimes she couldn’t sleep and just needed to get her work done.

“Bad habit,” he said. “Or a good one. I find it comes with the territory of owning a business.”

“That’s true,” she said. “There is no nine to five in my career.”

“Sometimes my nine to five is night to morning,” he said, laughing.

“Part of the reason I chose to be this kind of doctor over a medical doctor,” she said. Her parents were shocked she didn’t want to continue with some other kind of medicine.

She’d never had any plans on being a surgeon, emergency medicine, or delivering babies. The three things her mother tried to push her toward.

Her father said she should have gone to be a dermatologist.

No. She didn’t want to treat patients that were physically hurt.

She didn’t even want to go for psychiatry. That focused more on mental health.

She wanted to help heal the injuries that weren’t visible to the naked eye but at the same time work with those who wanted to help themselves.

For a few years she’d found her career both rewarding and frustrating.

The frustration of meeting with clients like Katelyn and having a clear idea of what she thought her client wanted and then not seeing her speak up, to rewarding knowing that the path had been laid out and Katelyn needed to take the step when she was ready.

---