Doctor-Patient Confidentiality: Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Four

His remark evokes the coldest, most insidious chill I’ve ever felt, slithering up my spine and making it go painfully rigid. Even when he briefly goes silent, I can still hear the echo of his voice in my head; implicit. Sinister. Foreboding.

A series of tremors rips through me, all the air rushing out of my lungs as they seize uncontrollably. I freeze, body and mind; fear and uncertainty paralyzing me in every way, but I highly doubt knowing what he’s going to do next would make me any less afraid.

Frost stays behind me, his overbearing presence all too apparent even though I’m not facing him—and I have absolutely no desire to—my heart thumping sporadically, swelling with uncontainable anxiety.

“Go straight,” he says.

My stomach knots up at the unexpected command, a wave of goosebumps breaking out over my shoulders. My eyes slam shut briefly, hating that I have to walk in front of him again with my whole, entire body on display—imperfections and all.