Page 12 - DeepRestFlipFinal

NICHOLAS BOOTHMAN
The official report was clinical, detached. Cause
of death: Acute overdose. Manner: Suicide. No note.
No explanation. Just the chilling finality of it.
She’d read it a hundred times, searching for a
clue, a hidden message, anything that would explain
the inexplicable. There was nothing. Just the stark,
brutal truth.
She felt it now, the familiar weight settling on her
shoulders. The crushing apathy. The dull ache behind
her eyes. The overwhelming, bone-deep exhaustion
that no amount of sleep could touch.
This is it, she thought, a detached part of her
observing. This is what Mallory felt. This is what I’m
feeling now.
It was a cruel irony. The psychologist who
specialized in depression was now its unwilling
patient. She saw the signs in herself, textbook perfect.
Anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure. Insomnia,
despite the fatigue. Irritability. The pervasive sense of
worthlessness.
She had tried to work. Her practice, her sanctuary,
now felt like a prison. The faces of her patients, once
sources of hope, now mirrored her own despair. How
could she guide them out of the darkness when she
was drowning in it herself?
Her colleagues had offered platitudes, sympathetic
glances, recommendations for therapists. She had seen
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