BURNED - A Chicago Fire Fanfiction

Chapter Fifty Two

I sat in silence as Dr. Charles stared back at me. The only sounds was coming from the ticking clock on the wall a small little desk fan he had sitting off to the side of his desk. "Zahra," Dr. Charles softly spoke. "You've been coming to me for a few weeks now, surely we've developed a healthy doctor-patient relationship."

"Yeah," I muttered as I anxiously twirled my ring around my finger.

"Shouldn't you feel comfortable enough to talk to me?"

"Yeah..."

"I mean, since you started seeing me, all we've talked about was your life at 51 and your time at Cook County." I didn't respond. "Who was he?"

"Huh?"

"Zahra, you've been coming here multiple times a week, and every time I see you, you're twirling your ring around your finger." I looked down at my finger and slightly slid it down to see where the ring had rubbed my skin raw over the years, leaving a thick, smooth impression underneath it. "He must've been someone important." I remained silent and slid my ring back into place, fighting the urge to fidget with it again. "Why won't you talk to me today? Did something happen?"

"No," I answered. "There's just not much to talk about."

"I think there is. You are a very interesting person, Zahra. But I can see it in your eyes, your posture, even the way you breathe; you've been through something traumatic and you're struggling to deal with it. You're shielding."

"I'm not shielding."

"Then tell me something new about you. I wanna get deep into the mind of Zahra Bennett."

"That's a big rabbit hole, Alice."

"And, unlike the white rabbit, I have all the time in the world."

"If you do then tell me about you."

"Me?"

"You always make people talk to you about themselves, but not once do you ever offer anyone any insight about who you are."

"I'm not the patient here, Zahra," Dr. Charles smiled.

"No, but you are my doctor. I'd like to know more about my doctor, otherwise I might as well pay some crackhead on the sidewalk to listen to me bitch and moan. It'd be cheaper and I'd know just as much about them as I do you."

"Okay," Dr. Charles chuckled. "Well, my first name is Daniel, but only people I'm really close to call me that, so you'll rarely ever hear it. I'm divorced, I have a beautiful daughter, and I'm married to my job, basically. I enjoy the occasional jazz and tend to hum to much of everyone's annoyance."

"Wow," I tittered. "And you say I'm shielding."

"I'm sorry?"

"All that is just seasoning to the whole dish that is you, Dr. Charles. You're hiding something."

"I can assure you that I'm not hiding anything."

"But you are. I can tell."

"Oh really?" Dr. Charles leaned back in his seat and smiled. "I'd love to hear your thoughts on it."

"For starters, you said that I'll rarely ever hear anyone call you by your first name, meaning that you have trust issues, most likely from being hurt by someone close to you in your past. Seeing that you are divorced, I'd say it was your ex wife."

"Hmm," Dr. Charles hummed with amusement. "A very astute observation. What else?"

"You are the chief of psychiatry and are always trying to fix everyone's problems. You see them as broken and needing fixing, you crave to be the proverbial glue that puts them back together again. However, there's one person you want to fix, but you feel as if you don't have enough glue to put them back again, so you just sit back and watch them suffer, feeling worthless and inadequate. And that one person is you. You are a depressed little nugget pretending to be a happy meal."