“Would you be willing to try a different kind of therapy?”
That’s what Dr. Harper Wells asked him in their third session.
And Marcus Brown, already exhausted and unraveling, simply said:
“Yes.”
He didn’t know then that the moment he agreed — the very second that word left his mouth — the direction of his life had shifted.
Not toward healing.
Toward the end.
Session One
Marcus was court-referred after an incident at work — he’d shattered a computer monitor with his fist and hurled a chair at the wall. He told the officers he was just blowing off steam. Told the psychologist he was fine.
“I don’t have anger issues,” he muttered. “I have idiot tolerance issues.”
Dr. Harper Wells sat in composed silence, her expression unreadable as she carefully observed Marcus, while her pen slowly moved across the page in long, elegant loops of cursive that seemed as deliberate and measured as her silence.
She didn’t speak for nearly the first twenty minutes of the session.
Then, gently said:
“Tell me about Lindsey.”
He flinched.
She smiled.
Just a flicker.
She always knew where to poke.
Session Three
Marcus mentioned dreams.
“They’re loud,” he said. “I wake up with clenched fists. My sheets pulled tight like I was fighting something in my sleep.”
Harper’s voice was almost too soft.
“Would you be willing to try a different kind of therapy?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Yes. Whatever helps.”
He didn’t notice the pause she took — not hesitation, but satisfaction.
Session Four
She dimmed the lights in the office. Changed the seating — no more desk between them. Just two chairs, side by side, facing a blank wall.
Minimalism, she called it.
But it felt more like a prison cell.
“Let’s not talk today,” Harper said.
Instead, she led him through guided visualizations.
Each one darker than the last.
“Picture yourself in the room with the person who hurt you.”
“Picture what happens if you stop pretending to be the better person.”
“Imagine what you’d do if there were no consequences — just the truth of what you want.”
Each time, his breathing changed.
Deeper. Slower. More honest.
Session Six
She played recordings during sessions. Barely audible.
Chanting? Whispered words? Something mechanical and strange.
When Marcus asked, she just smiled.
“Subconscious conditioning. Harmless.”
He nodded. But his thoughts afterward were never harmless.
That night, he imagined Lindsey crying — not in fear, but from the pressure of his hands on her throat.
And in the dream… she went quiet.
He woke with calm in his chest — and no trace of regret.
Session Nine
Lindsey vanished.
Apartment door ajar. Phone left behind. No signs of a break-in.
Marcus told the police she’d been threatening to leave.
“She probably finally did,” he said.
But he looked… relieved.
When he told Harper, she barely blinked.
“I miss her sometimes,” he said. “But I sleep better now.”
Harper just reached for her notebook and wrote one word:
“Opened.”
Session Ten
“I keep thinking I see her,” Marcus admitted. “Like, just out of view. A shadow moving at the edge of the room.”
“Guilt,” Harper replied. “Or the echo of it.”
“Maybe I should feel worse,” he said.
“But you don’t,” she answered.
“No.”
“Good”
Session Eleven
She gave him tea at the start of the session. Herbal. Soothing. By the time he started speaking, his limbs felt heavy. His thoughts slow.
That’s when she spoke differently — her voice lower. Intentional. Almost… surgical.
“Do you know what I love about you, Marcus?”
He blinked. “What?”
“You don’t lie to yourself. Most people do. But you let the bad in. You don’t fight it.”
He tried to speak, but the words slurred.
“You didn’t kill her,” she whispered. “You just gave yourself permission.”
She smiled.
“I can work with that.”
One Week Later
Marcus’s body was found at the edge of Delvin Lake.
No signs of struggle. No wounds.
His wrists were folded over a rock, where a small note was tucked beneath:
“I couldn’t carry it anymore.”
His handwriting. His confession.
Case closed.
Authorities tied him to Lindsey’s disappearance. Unstable. Paranoid. Likely murdered her and couldn’t live with it.
Dr. Harper Wells gave a quote to the press:
“Therapists don’t always have the power to stop tragedy, but we try. Marcus was deeply unwell. I only wish I’d reached to him sooner.”
They praised her for her compassion.
Her empathy.
Her resilience.
No one questioned her, the therapist, after all, had tried to help.
That night, Harper entered the back room of her practice — where she kept the real records. Not the insurance forms. Not the billing.
The ledger.
She ran her fingers down the spines of the black folders.
Seven so far. All labeled. Not by name.
By outcomes, “Freed, Purged, Erased, Awakened, Completed, Aligned and Cleansed”.
She opened Marcus’s folder one last time.
Inside: a copy of his suicide note.
His therapy transcripts.
A lock of Lindsey’s hair.
She slid Marcus’s folder into place, it’s spine now labelled in her precise handwriting:
Unburdened.
Not dead. Not guilty. Just finally free of the burden she helped him recognise.
Then pulled out a fresh one.
Name: Tyler Grant
Referral Reason: Repeated stalking incidents. Aggressive behavior toward women.
First Session: Monday, 5:00 PM
She sharpened her pencil.
Wrote one sentence at the top:
“Would you be willing to try a different kind of therapy?”
And underlined the word “yes.”
React
