Page 5 of Petite Fleur

I wish I could say that my day only went up from there, but I'd be lying if I did.

My next patient, an intelligent young girl, ruined her own life with her distorted body image. She allowed the opinions of others to destroy her self-confidence until she felt as if her only option was to starve herself to be viewed as beautiful.

Even worse, her mother enabled this behavior. She allowed it to happen until her daughter reached the point of hospitalization and her father finally stepped in, but I'll help her.

Before leaving for the day, I followed my usual checklist: I set my office phone to forward emergency calls to my cell phone, double-checked all of my appointments for tomorrow, and checked with my receptionist to make sure she hadn't received any mail or calls that weren't forwarded to me.

I don't even know why I check with her every day. She's been my assistant for four years and has never once disappointed me.

Even when I was a nobody, she was there. When I was a small psychiatrist in a shitty office building on the wrong side of town, she was there and just as cheery as she is now that I'm the most sought-after psychiatrist in all of Texas.

I went from almost begging for patients to being so good that I owned my practice and employed four other doctors and countless therapists.

I've worked harder than most people my age, sacrificing my personal life to make myself a success, but the money is worth it.

Plus, I don't hate being alone.

On nights like tonight, when my brain and body are exhausted, I'd hate to come home and cook a meal for myself and a partner.

No, on nights like tonight, I'm grateful that I can just order takeout and eat it on my front porch with a large glass of bourbon.

I usually prefer to cook, I don't keep the physique I have by living on takeout and liquor, but when all your day does is get progressively worse, it's inevitable.

I wonder if I have a frozen pizza at home?

No. Fuck. I ate that last week when I heard about my new patient killing herself.

She and I had yet to get a single appointment in, she'd rescheduled me twice.

It worried me that something was wrong, so I called her and begged her to come in and see me. I even offered to do a house call if being outside scared her.

She agreed to come in, but she never made it to the office. Someone or something triggered her PTSD, it sent her down a spiral that led her to her death.

Even though she was never technically my patient, I feel as if failed her. If I could've gotten to her sooner, if I could've talked to her more, or made a house call rather than had her come to me.

All the what-ifs are sitting in my mind, but I can't think like that, not in my line of work.

It will do nothing but haunt me if I obsess over every patient who doesn't survive.

Fuck it, I'm stopping for takeout.

I wanted to wait until I at least got off campus, but I'm starving and something smells fantastic.

Still, it's not really worth dealing with college kids.

I didn't even attend this school, yet I hate these kids. I attended college in Austin, but all college kids are the same. Loud, disruptive, entitled, and naive.

But the food is always good. Campus restaurants usually have the cheapest and most unusual options.

I park at one of the meters and head inside, forcing myself to ignore how busy and loud this place is.

Most of the kids are on their computers, typing away without a care in the world while the rest of them are sitting in groups talking, laughing, and fucking off.

Either my tolerance for kids is pretty high today, or they're not actually that bad right now.

Whatever, I just want to get out of here.

I head to the counter, waiting in a line behind at least five people. That's fine; it gives me time to check the emails that I neglected this morning.

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