“How was your day, Zoe?”

  Zoe sat on the white leather couch in the homey little room and looked out a window at a little courtyard garden. The garden was Asian in design, complete with bonsai, a japanese maple, perfectly smooth stones and sand raked into mesmerising patterns.

  “Zoe?”

  The voice was perfectly calm and collected, gentle without being warm.

  Blinking slowly at the garden, Zoe tried to imagine jumping through the window and ripping all that balance and beauty apart. She’d shove a rock out of place, claw her fingers through the sand and break limbs off the carefully groomed bonsai. “My day was fine,” she said out loud while inside she was raging. She made her voice sound like the garden, peaceful and refined while her blood was pounding in her ears.

  “I see…” Dr. Calvin made a note on her clipboard. “Why don’t you tell me about it? Did you have swimming practice today?”

  A twisted smile crossed her lips before she gained control of her reaction. Her hair was still obviously damp in the messy little bun she had piled on top of her head. And she was wearing her swim team jacket. Obviously she’d had swim practice.

  “What happened, Zoe? You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but it might make you feel better if you do.”

  That little technique was the one that always broke her. Such a lame trick, but it got her every time. She obviously did not want to talk about anything, especially swim practice, but giving her an out, a way to legitimately avoid the conversation always made her spill her guts. Her father had taught her to never give up, especially not when someone was opening the door to let you escape.

  “Nothing happened,” she said finally, glancing at Dr. Calvin with a shrug of her shoulder. “Nothing unusual,” she amended. “I missed my target time and coach made me swim another ten laps.” She remembered the way her muscles had burned on those laps, the way she had slipped and bruised her arm when she was trying to haul herself out of the pool afterwards with muscles that felt like noodles.

  Dr. Calvin waited, a blank expression as she sat prim and proper in her black leather chair, legs crossed and clipboard balanced on her knee. Zoe had no idea how old the woman was, but her severe pixie cut and red rimmed glasses made her pale skin look like parchment paper. Black hair with only a sprinkling of gray swept back from her high cheekbones and deeply set black eyes. Zoe had no idea where her father had found the woman, but she was clearly working for him and not for Zoe.

  “How did that make you feel?” Dr. Calvin asked when Zoe remained silent.

  “Tired,” she said tartly. Proud of her small rebellion, Zoe settled back in her chair and waited for Dr. Calvin to make the next move. She had never seen the woman show much of a reaction, but she never stopped trying to get one out of her. Surely she was human underneath that carefully controlled exterior. It wasn’t possible for her to actually be a robot, was it?

  To Zoe’s disappointment, Dr. Calvin returned her attention to the chart without showing any emotion. “What about the rest of the team? Did they all perform perfectly?”

  This struck a nerve for Zoe and she found herself speaking before she could stop herself. “No. Tanya finished her set much slower than I did. And Sarah screwed up her handoff on the relay.”

  “And did either of them have to swim laps after practice?”

  An image sprung to Zoe’s mind before she was ready for it, the rest of the team laughing and joking around as they headed for the locker room without a glance back at the teammate jumping back in the pool. She thought Mary might have looked at her through the locker room window, but she wasn’t sure if the look was pity or amusement. She shook her head, a lump of pure emotion forming in her throat. It wasn’t self-pity. Not really. It was anger at the injustice of it all.

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  “Why do you think that was?”

  Zoe’s anger burst out of her like an incandescent flame, too hot for her to contain any longer. “Because coach hates me! That’s why.”

  “Maybe she’s trying to avoid favoritism. She’s hard on you because she doesn’t want the other girls to think that you are getting preferential treatment because of your social status.”

  “That’s not it.” Bitterness dripped from her words and she suddenly felt cold after her outburst, hugging her arms to herself to generate a little warmth.

  “Why not?”

  “Because she hates me. She’s jealous of my family. Of my dad. She doesn’t like his politics. That’s what she said on the first day of practice. She hates my dad’s policies so she takes it out on me.”

  “That’s possible,” Dr. Calvin admitted. “There are a lot of people in this world who demonstrate such poor behavior, and teachers and coaches are not above such pettiness.”

  Zoe looked up at her in surprise.

  Leaning forward and clasping her hands on top of the clipboard, Dr. Calvin smiled tightly, thin lips compressed into a shallow curve. “But my theory is equally possible. And the fact is that you will probably never know which version of reality is the true one.”

  “So I just have to deal with it?” Zoe asked, galled.

  Dr. Calvin shrugged. “You could tell your dad about it. He’d probably get angry and use his influence to get your coach fired.”

  Zoe hated that idea and she knew that Dr. Calvin had expected that reaction, so she didn’t respond. She knew the doctor could see the anger in her eyes. She both hated and feared that her father had that kind of power. She’d seen him abuse it before while berating her weakness for requiring him to use it. The constant anxiety caused by this narrow realm of options between success on her own merits and failure that would confirm his doubts in her was what had triggered her panic attacks in the first place.

  “You want to go to medical school, don’t you?” her father had demanded on more than one occasion while she was rapidly dissolving into a quivering pile of nerves and self-destructive energy. As if the idea hadn’t been his in the first place. “If you want to be a surgeon, you’re going to have to get these emotions of yours in check. Surgeons have to be calm and collected, Zo. You know that.”

  Every word would make her collapse further, spirals of thinking turning over and over in her mind until she couldn’t breathe.

  “Zoe.” Dr. Calvin’s voice was gentle but firm. She was sitting with her on the couch now, the clipboard abandoned on her chair. While she didn’t touch Zoe, she was close enough for Zoe to react to her presence like a stone dropped on the surface of Zoe’s already ruffled calm. “Breathe with me now,” Dr. Calvin said, “In...and out. Again. Slow. Like this.” She moved her hand in the air with every breath and Zoe watched it rise and fall, forcing herself to follow the instructions, the entire world narrowing down to this simple act of breathing in and out.

  “Very good,” Dr. Calvin said finally, standing up to return to her seat and Zoe caught a glimpse of emotion on her face as she walked away. A hint of relief. Sitting down again, she regarded Zoe silently for several moments before asking, “What happened just now? Where did you go?”

  “I’m not asking my dad for help,” Zoe said in a weak voice, but the tone was almost as firm as Dr. Calvin’s voice.

  Noting something on her clipboard, Dr. Calvin nodded and Zoe thought for a moment that she was proud of Zoe’s statement. “Then what are your options?”

  Zoe bit her lower lip. “I don’t know.”

  “In situations like these, when you are at an impasse, it’s important to think through your choices, even the ones you don’t want to take.” Ticking options off on her fingers, she continued, “You could ask your father to intervene. You could transfer schools. You could drop out of swimming. You could suffer through the punishment begrudgingly.” She paused for effect. “Or you can use the situation to your advantage.”

  “How?”

  “Your coach is training you to be one of the best swimmers on the team. All that extra practice will pay off eventually.”

  Zoe shook her head. “What if I over train or get an injury because of it?”

  “That is a possibility. You should think about the pros and cons of each option. The important thing is for you to make the choice yourself and own it. If you make a choice of your own free will it is harder to become a victim.”

  Zoe wasn’t sure what to think about this. Screwing her face up in thought, she asked, “But what if I change my mind?”

  “Then you choose to change your mind. The important thing is that you make choices for yourself and accept the consequences either way. You are in control of your own destiny, Zoe. Not your father. Not your swim coach. Not me. You get to decide.”