Catherine's Secrets

Chapter 7

Stephanie sat on the bed in the doctor's office. She slowly banged her foot against the end of it. She was nervous, she hated doctors offices. Her parents had insisted she be checked out after the events of the last two days.

"Mom, really I'm fine. I just have bruises." Catherine shook her head.

"Honey, regardless you're getting looked over you don't get a vote in this." Stephanie sighed before she begrudgingly laid back on the bed. She never wanted to be touched by another stranger again. The doctor knocked on the door. Here came cold hands from someone she didn't know yet again.

"Hello guys, I'm Doctor Ronnie. How are you doing Stephanie? I heard you went through a pretty scary thing in the last couple days." Stephanie kept her mouth shut. She watched as the doctor walked over to her biting her tongue.

"I'm gonna look at that foot okay?" Stephanie nodded and watched as the doctor squeezed lightly on her foot. Wincing slightly, he nodded.

"I'm gonna measure your blood pressure now and your temperature okay?" Stephanie felt his cold hands put the blood pressure cuff on her arm. She was fine until it started tightening.

"No! Get it off! Get it off!" Stephanie started freaking out. She yanked the cuff off her arm. Stephanie felt the doctor grab her to steady her. Stephanie bit him out of pure instinct. It was fight or flight in that moment.

"

Don't touch me! Get off of me!" With that, Stephanie ran out of the room and towards the car before jumping in and locking the doors. Catherine looked at the doctor in shock as her eyes followed to the bite mark.

"Doc, I'm so sorry she has never done anything like that she's usually very well behaved for the most part besides the occasional attitude." The doctor put his hand up to stop her.

"It's okay, she's suffering right now. Your daughter is definitely suffering from post traumatic stress and I'm gonna give you a number of a couple therapists you can call, okay?" Catherine nodded and took the numbers the doctor wrote down.

"What about everything else? Does she seem okay? Her foot?"

"Her foot is sprained. Keep it elevated and iced. Have her stay off of it for the next week." Catherine smiled at him and thanked him. Catherine watched him write a script for anxiety medication before he handed it to her.

"Steve mentioned on the phone she woke up last night and was scared to sleep alone. Here is a prescription for melatonin and anxiety medication. It's not forever just until she works out the stress."

"Thank you doctor, I appreciate it. Again I'm sorry about her biting you." Catherine walked out and signed out all her paperwork before she walked to the car and unlocked the door. Looking over she saw Stephanie staring at nothing.

"Honey, you are okay alright. No one is gonna hurt you. We are gonna go to the pharmacy and then home okay?" Stephanie nodded as she continued to stare at nothing in some sort of shock.

X

"What happened to the window?" Steve watched as the window repair guy started fixing the window.

"My daughter was kidnapped two days ago." The repair man turned his head towards the tall man in cargo pants and gave him a sad look.

"She's okay, I got her back. She's just scared because the window is still broken."

"Man, I can't even imagine the fear of that I got two boys myself. I'd kill someone for them. Listen, I'm gonna put in a double pane window no charge for you. It'll be harder for someone to break."

"Thanks man, I really appreciate it." Steve walked down the stairs and watched Julie playing with her toys.

"Hey kiddo, you and Steph are gonna go hang out with Uncle Lou for the day okay? Me and mommy have to do some stuff today." Julie just continued playing with her toys before she stopped and looked at her father.

"Daddy, what's wrong with Stephanie and where did she go?" How was Steve gonna explain this to an eight year old.

"Some bad people took her to get back at me and your mom and we had to give them money to get her back and they weren't very nice to her."

"Is that gonna happen again to me?" Steve pulled his daughter towards him and made her look him in the eye.

"Not if I can help it. You are safe okay?" Julie nodded.

"Can I have a snack?" Steve nodded and watched her run to the kitchen.

"No junk! Grab some healthy!" Steve chuckled when he heard her groan and put the cookies back before watching her grab an orange.

Steve pulled out his phone and started googling surveillance and security systems he wanted to get one better than they had now. They needed something that would alert them when someone got thirty feet within the house. He called the one that had the best stars and scheduled them to come out later in the day. Just as he was finishing up the phone call he heard Catherine and Stephanie coming in the door.

"Hey, how was the doctor?" He ended the phone call just as they came in sight.

"It went okay," The look on Catherine's face told him something went wrong. He watched as Stephanie walked up the stairs like a zombie. He wanted his spunky kid back the one who was rambunctious and always argued with him.

"What happened?"

"She bit the doctor. She went bezerk when he put the blood pressure cuff on her arm. Doc said she has post traumatic stress which we both already knew. He gave me a list of therapists and prescribed her anxiety medication and sleeping meds."

"Anxiety medication? Jesus, she's fourteen." God help the pathetic piece of crap who did this to his baby. 

"Steve, it's not forever just until she can work this out." Steve rubbed his face, he was stressed the last thing he wanted was his kid to have to take medicine for crippling anxiety.

"Listen, I was gonna have Lou watch them but with everything going on with Stephanie maybe it's better if one of us stays home with them while one of us goes to check out the thirsty lab."

"I'll check out the thirsty lab, Steve I was already looking into it last night. Plus they know you better than I do and besides you know a lot about PTSD better than I do. I really don't wanna be the one to tell her she has to talk to a shrink." Steve chuckled and kissed Catherine who left out the door.