Dear Hubby, Bro & BFF. You All Watched Me Break? Now Watch Me Leave Chapter 08
A week later, I was working at my drawing board when Mason Reed, Colin’s childhood friend, called me.
“Natalie, there’s something I think you need to know.”
Mason told me Colin still hadn’t given up after returning home.
He had contacted Derek, hoping the older members of my family could talk me out of the divorce. His main argument was that I was mentally ill, needed my husband to take care of me, and would only suffer if I went through with the divorce.
Paige was helping him prepare a so-called psychological evaluation intended to prove that I couldn’t live independently.
The day after Mason’s call, the first text from Derek arrived.
[Natalie, where are you? Everyone in the family is worried. You’re out there alone, and you’re still not well. Who’s responsible if something happens to you?]
A second message followed.
[Colin told me everything. He’s willing to change and take you to a licensed professional. Your marriage was fine. There’s no reason to take this as far as divorce.]
Then came a third.
[Mom and Dad are getting older. Stop making them worry. Uncle Robert wants everyone to have dinner this weekend and talk things
—
through.]
He only wanted to smooth everything over and convince me to return home.
I didn’t respond.
Then a fourth message appeared.
[If you don’t answer, I’ll assume you agree. Saturday at Uncle Robert’s house. Colin will be there.]
After reading it, I blocked him.
I opened my laptop and pulled up an encrypted folder.
It contained the full five-minute recording from the Fear Room. Paige’s laughter, the sound of the timer starting, the lock clicking into place, and Colin’s voice were all there.
There was also footage from the small camera I had installed in the corner of the living room after the storage room incident, along with audio recorded on my backup phone.
Every time they locked me in somewhere, I tried to preserve a record.
I hadn’t captured everything, but I had enough.
I bundled the files together and sent them to my attorney with a message.
[If they want to use my condition against me, let everyone see how they made me this way.]
—
I also asked my attorney to send Derek a copy of the complaint filed with the State Board of Professional Counselors. He could read it for himself.
Three days later, Colin received a letter from my attorney.
It wasn’t another copy of the divorce papers. It was a pre-suit demand letter seeking damages for the emotional distress and psychological harm he had caused.
The attached evidence list was four pages long.
That same day, the State Board of Professional Counselors sent Paige’s counseling center formal notice of the complaint and investigation.
The complaint identified Paige as a counseling intern who wasn’t licensed to practice independently.
It stated that she had subjected a person with claustrophobia to forced exposure without informed consent or proper supervision. Her actions had caused serious psychological and physical harm.
The complete audio recordings and my diagnostic report were attached.
Paige was trying on clothes at the mall when she received the call from the center’s clinical director.
The smile vanished from her face.
“That’s impossible! Who filed the complaint? I was informally helping
—
a friend. That wasn’t professional treatment!”
“The Board has ordered us to cooperate with its investigation. Your internship is suspended effective immediately. Until a final decision is reached, you’re not to represent this center in any capacity.”
That evening, Colin took the letter from my attorney to Paige’s apartment and slammed it down on the table.
“You called it exposure therapy, but you weren’t even licensed to practice independently?”
A series of emotions flickered across Paige’s face.
“I—I learned it from my supervisor. There was nothing wrong with the theory.”
“The theory?”
Colin glared at her.
“You used my wife as a guinea pig?”
Paige gave a cold laugh. She stood and pointed a finger in his face.
“Your wife? You have some nerve. Who was the one who actually did it? Could I walk into your house and install those locks myself?”
“You loved it. You loved feeling like you were the only person who could save her.”
“You’re a hundred times more disgusting than I am.”
—
Colin stood there without a word.