Day 2 . Continues Part C

The next morning arrived too quickly. Sarah had barely slept—three hours of restless tossing, her mind churning with fragments of therapy session echoes and the cold dread of returning to work.

She stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Dark circles carved hollows beneath her eyes. Her skin looked sallow. She tried to summon a smile, a practice run for the performance ahead, but her face refused to cooperate.

Just get through the day, she told herself. One hour at a time.

The clinic was busier than usual. Phones rang incessantly. Patients arrived early, impatient. Mr. Henderson's gout was flaring again, and he was taking it out on everyone within earshot. Sarah's head throbbed with the effort of maintaining composure while her brain felt stuffed with cotton.

And then it happened.

Mrs. Albright, a sweet elderly woman with chronic arthritis, had called earlier requesting a prescription refill. Sarah had taken the message, scribbled it on a pink slip, and tucked it into the designated basket for Dr. Aris. But when Mrs. Albright arrived for her appointment, the slip was gone. Vanished. No record of the call anywhere in the system.

"Where is my prescription?" Mrs. Albright asked, her voice trembling with confusion. "The receptionist said it would be ready."

Sarah's blood ran cold. She frantically searched her desk, rifled through stacks of papers, checked the computer system three times. Nothing. Her heart pounded so violently she could hear it in her ears.

"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Albright," she stammered. "I took the message yesterday. I know I did. Let me—let me just check with the doctor."

But Dr. Aris was with another patient. The waiting room was full. And Mrs. Albright's eyes were filling with tears.

"All these appointments are so hard," the elderly woman whispered. "I can't keep coming back. I just need my medicine."

Sarah's brain scrambled. Then, a flash of clarity—she remembered the slip. She'd moved it. She'd pulled it aside to call the pharmacy directly, then gotten distracted by an emergency walk-in. It was in her personal file folder, the one she used for follow-ups.

She found it in thirty seconds. Relief flooded through her.

"Here it is, Mrs. Albright. I found it. I'll personally walk it to Dr. Aris right now. Your prescription will be ready within the hour."

She fixed the problem. The patient wasn't mistaken—Sarah was. The error was hers. But she fixed it.

And yet, the shame clung to her like wet clothing.

When the lunch rush finally passed, Sarah found Dr. Aris in the breakroom. He was eating a sad-looking salad, but his eyes brightened when he saw her.

"Sarah! How are you feeling? How did the appointment go?"

She hesitated. The urge to say "fine" was overwhelming. But she'd promised herself—and Elena—to stop pretending.

"It went... okay," she said quietly, sitting across from him. "But I messed up today. Badly. I nearly lost a patient's prescription refill. I put it aside and forgot about it. Mrs. Albright was upset. I fixed it, but it was my fault."

Dr. Aris's expression softened. "Did you? You found it and sorted it out?"

"Yes, but—"

"Then you fixed a mistake. That's what we do, Sarah. We're human."

She shook her head, tears pricking her eyes. "It's not just that. I'm so tired. I barely slept. My head feels like it's full of static. I'm making mistakes I never used to make. I thought asking for help was the right thing, but what if I'm just... not capable anymore?"

Dr. Aris reached across the table and squeezed her hand. "You are capable. You're just struggling. There's a difference. I'm going to have a word with the practice manager, Mark. We need to make some accommodations while you're working through this."

Sarah's eyes widened. "No—please, Dr. Aris. Don't tell Mark. He'll think I can't do my job. I'll be fine. I just need to try harder."

"Sarah," Dr. Aris said gently, "this isn't a punishment. It's support. But I need to be transparent with the management. You don't have to carry this alone."

She wanted to argue, but the exhaustion was too profound. She just nodded weakly and returned to her desk.

---

An hour later, Mark called her into his office.

Mark was a tall, stern man in his late 40s, perpetually harried and perpetually disappointed. His office was cluttered with charts and coffee cups, a chaotic reflection of his personality. He gestured for Sarah to sit, his jaw tight.

"Dr. Aris tells me you've been having some difficulties," he said, his voice clipped.

Sarah's stomach plummeted. "I—yes. I've been going through some personal things. But I'm handling it."

Are you?" Mark leaned forward, his eyes hard. "Because I just heard about the Albright situation. A simple prescription refill, and you nearly caused a complaint. You've been here three years, Sarah. You're one of our best. But lately, your performance has been slipping. Missed calls. Late paperwork. And now this."

"I fixed it," she said quietly, her voice cracking. "The patient wasn't harmed. I corrected the issue."

"You fixed a problem you created," Mark snapped. "That's not a victory, that's damage control. Do you understand how frustrating this is? You came to Dr. Aris with this, not me. He had to tell me. I'm your manager, Sarah. If there's a problem, you come to me. Instead, I find out secondhand, and I'm left scrambling to understand what's happening with my staff."

Tears blurred her vision. She blinked furiously, refusing to let them fall. "I was trying to get help. I thought—"

"You thought you'd skip the chain of command," Mark interrupted. "That's not how this works. I need to know what's going on. You're the face of this clinic. When you're not at your best, everyone suffers. The patients. The doctors. The rest of the team who has to pick up your slack."

Her hands trembled as she signed it. She couldn't even argue. I asked for help. I did everything right. I went to therapy. I was honest. I fixed my mistake. And this is what I get? Her phone buzzed. A text from Dr. Aris: "Sarah, I'm sorry. I thought he'd understand. Let's talk tomorrow."

She threw the phone into the passenger seat.

It was wrong to ask. It was wrong to share. I should have kept my mouth shut. I should have pretended harder. I was fine before—fine enough—and now everyone knows I'm broken. They all see it. Mark sees it. He thinks I'm weak. He's right.

She drove home in a blur, her body on autopilot while her mind spiraled into darkness. The apartment was cold and empty. She didn't bother turning on the lights. She collapsed onto her bed, still in her work clothes, and stared at the ceiling.

Sleep wouldn't come. Her eyes burned, her head ached, and every time she closed her eyes, she saw Mark's disappointed face. She heard his words on repeat: "I all your fault spill the issue to other doctor ."

I'm too heavy. Too broken. This was a mistake. All of it. Therapy won't fix me. Nothing will fix me.

She pulled the covers over her head and wept into her pillow, the sound muffled and desperate.

For the first time since she'd walked into Elena's office, Sarah wondered if she'd made everything worse by trying to get better.

Maybe the gray fog wasn't so bad. At least it didn't judge her.

She curled into a tight ball, her body shaking with silent sobs, and let the darkness swallow her whole.

What's the point? her mind whispered. You'll just mess up again. They're all watching you now, waiting for you to fail.

But she got up anyway. Not because she wanted to. Because the alternative—staying in bed, letting the world know she'd given up—felt even worse.

Sarah kept her head down, her voice flat and professional as she greeted the first wave of patients. She didn't smile. She couldn't. Her face felt like stone.

And then—nothing happened.

No disasters. No missing prescriptions. No angry patients. The morning passed in a blur of routine tasks, each one completed with robotic precision. She answered phones. She scheduled appointments. She filed paperwork. She did her job.

But the nothingness was worse than the mistakes.

Because in the silence, her mind had room to spiral.

Mark didn't even look at me this morning. He's probably already planning to fire me.

Dr. Aris is avoiding me. He regrets telling Mark. He thinks I'm a liability now.

Everyone knows. They all heard. They're whispering about me behind my back.

You brought this on yourself, the voice in her head hissed. You should have just pretended. You were fine before. You were coping. Now look at you. A warning slip in your file. Everyone knows you're a mess. You've ruined everything.

They don't want to hear from you. You're a burden. You're too much. You'll just drag them down with you.

She set the phone aside and pulled her knees to her chest, rocking slightly, trying to soothe herself with the motion. It didn't help. Nothing helped.

The blame had settled deep into her bones, a poison that colored everything. Every thought was tinged with it. Every memory was rewritten through its lens.

Dr. Aris was kind to me because he felt sorry for me, not because he actually cared.

Mark gave me a warning because he's right. I'm not good enough anymore.

Maybe this is who I am now, she thought. Someone who can't handle anything. Someone who needs help but can't ask for it without being punished. Someone who's always one mistake away from falling apart.

A tear slid down her cheek. She didn't bother wiping it away.

I should have kept my mouth shut. I should have kept pretending. At least then I'd still have my job. At least then I wouldn't be this... this thing. This failure.

Her eyes grew heavy, finally, mercifully, and she slipped into a restless sleep filled with fragmented nightmares—Mark's face, the warning letter, her own voice screaming into an endless void.

Tomorrow would be another day of nothing. And somehow, that was the most terrifying thing of all.

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***