Chapter 539 539

[Warning: Upsetting Content regarding mental issues. Readers have been warned.]

"I see…" Shailene continued writing down her note. But she couldn't help to get distraught about the teenage bullying until he got depressed and had to be assigned to a psychologist.

Because it reminded Shailene of something unpleasant back then.

"You may continue, Miss Johnson."

"… Derik got assigned to a male psychologist named Carter, who happened to be young and also quite inexperienced. My parents didn't have that much money to begin with, so we could only afford a third-class psychologist and hoped for the best,"

"We thought that Derik's mental health would eventually recover. But as time passed, and money wasted into the psychologist, Derik's mental health wasn't recovering at all. He got worse, and had to drop out of high school because he had a manic episode that harmed one of his classmates."

"My parents were heartbroken because my brother had to drop out. They tried to move my Big brother to a different psychologist, but he got very close to this male psychologist, and refused to get treated by other professionals."

Shailene continued noting down, but she got increasingly uncomfortable as she didn't know what to do with this information.

First, she got uncomfortable because her client kept mentioning her brother in the past tense. As if he had died long ago.

Second, the story she was listening to sounded like something had happened to her. She tried her best to ignore and close the case because it would taint her reputation as a renowned psychologist.

But she maintained her magnanimity and asked, "So, your brother got stuck with that male psychologist?"

"Yes," Diamond replied. "Since he refused to find another one, we had to endure with that man, and it got worse after that. Derik's mental instability endangered everyone around them, and Derik locked himself in his room most of the time, only coming out when it was time to eat or going to his therapy session."

"Have your parents tried to talk to him?" Shailene suggested.

"As I said before, he only listened to that bastard psychologist," Diamond said. As she mentioned this psychologist, her tone grew increasingly cold and filled with hatred. "He manipulated my Big brother until he got emotionally dependent on that psychologist. He'd get frantic when he missed his therapy session. That psychologist started to increase his price until my parents had to sell a few things to be able to afford him."

"We got poorer and poorer, but Derik's depression had gotten even worse, and his manic episode got even more dangerous. My Dad started borrowing money from family and friends, until none of them wanted to give him more, because my Dad couldn't pay them back."

"So he started borrowing from the bank just to get enough money for Derik's therapy, and a series of bad decisions ended up costing us our home," Diamond grew increasingly bitter. She remembered that day when they were kicked out of their houses because their Dad couldn't pay the bank and had their house confiscated. "After they kicked us out, we had to live in a trailer on the outskirt of our town. Life was miserable, and Derik was still unwell."

Shailene starts sweating bullets. She didn't know if it was just a coincidence, but this story was too similar to something that had happened to her a few years back, and it wasn't a pretty thing to remember.

In fact, Shailene had been trying to forget about it, but she couldn't.

'This is just a coincidence. Still, it's definitely an eerie coincidence,' she thought. 'Alright, let's just act professional. Shailene. Act like nothing's wrong.'

"Did they manage to cure Derik in the end?" Shailene asked.

…

…

There was a long uncomfortable silence between them. Diamond didn't answer right away.

Instead, she kept staring at Shailene with a pair of dark, unblinking eyes. It was inexplicably creepy under the dim light of her home office.

Shailene gulped nervously. She wondered if this was also part of her new client's mental illness. Maybe a traumatic incident affected her whenever she recalled a memory. That traumatic incident must've been linked to Derik.

"He died," Diamond replied with a smile.

"D—Died?" Shailene's hand started trembling. She realized that things had gotten way too similar for her to ignore. "H—How?"

"He hung himself," Diamond continued. "I was fifteen at that time. I was the first one to see his corpse, hanging on a tree in front of our trailer. I remember how his eyes were lifeless, his tongue stuck out, and there were wounds around his neck where he wrapped the rope around. Maybe he realized that it was a bad idea, so he tried to free himself by clawing his neck, but it was too late, and he died."

"I remember screaming upon seeing his corpse, then my family all came out, and everyone was hysterical. My brother, Derik Johnson, died at the age of seventeen."

My family was grieving, we were poor too, so it was hell on earth for me," Diamond said. "Derik left us a note detailing his reason for committing suicide. He realized that he was nothing but a burden to the family, and he knew he wouldn't get any better, so he ended his life to save us all from the pain."

"But there was something that shocked us all inside his note. He mentioned one name that helped to push himself to commit suicide," Diamond said. "Do you know who it is?"

Shailene had already guessed the identity of the person who helped push Derik to commit suicide, but she hoped she was the wrong one here.

Because if she wasn't wrong, she could probably die from a heart attack right now.

"W—Who?" Shailene asked, playing along with Diamond, who was ready to drop the bomb.

Diamond smiled and opened her mouth. Not only she mentioned the name of the culprit, but also what he said to Diamond's brother that led him to commit suicide.