A Wedding in December

Not to Katie, but nothing much seemed like fun at the moment.

Maybe Vicky was right. Maybe she needed help. Not because of her reaction to Rosie, which seemed entirely sane to her, but because of the way she felt generally.

Was she clinically depressed? She had no idea. These days she didn’t even have the energy to diagnose herse

lf. “Are you not even the tiniest bit sympathetic that I have to drag myself on a fourteen-hour journey when even the half-hour commute almost finishes me off?”

“You’re going to spend Christmas playing in the snow at a luxury mountain resort and you expect me to feel sorry for you? You’re going to have to work harder.”

Katie tried to smile, but her head was filled with everything serious. She’d forgotten how to laugh and have a lighthearted conversation. She was consumed by guilt, and doubt and—yes—anxiety. And now she had her sister to worry about, too. How was she going to get through a week with family without falling apart? She honestly had no clue.

She knew she wasn’t good company either at work or at home.

Vicky sat down opposite her. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

Katie lifted her head and looked at her friend. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“A few weeks ago you came home looking worse than you do now, if that’s possible. You didn’t want to talk about it and I respect that, but—you looked traumatized.” Vicky reached across the table and took her hand. “I know something happened at work and I know it’s eating away at you. I’m your best friend, Kat. We’ve known each other forever. You can talk to me.”

“Not about this.” Katie tried to pull her hand away but Vicky tightened her grip. “I’m handling it.”

Vicky finally let her go. “If you don’t want to talk to me, fine, but you have to talk to someone. You can’t carry on like this. Even before that night, your life was ridiculous. You move from home to work and work to home.”

“Plenty of people do the same.”

“But do you even enjoy it? You used to be happy. You used to talk about how much you loved it, and the cases you saw. You were animated, but now you’re...”

“I’m what?”

Vicky swallowed. “Like a robot or something.”

“Thanks.” Had she loved it? It was true that she had satisfaction from meeting goals. She’d always been the same. Work for an exam, pass with top marks. She’d worked hard at each step, enjoying the forward motion. Onward and upward. “I don’t think anyone enjoys dragging people back from the brink of death every day.” The pressure was so intense it felt like being squeezed by a nutcracker.

“But you used to find it satisfying. You loved making a difference.”

Her heart beat faster. “Do you think we do make a difference?”

“Of course. Don’t you?”

“Most of the time I feel like I’m trying to stop the Titanic from sinking by putting my fist in the hole. It’s not working. We do what we can, but it never feels like enough.”

And since that night she was questioning everything.

She’d lost trust in herself. In her judgment.

You made a bad decision, Katie.

Bad call.

The blood pounded in her ears and her breathing grew shallow.

It didn’t matter how many times people told her that it wasn’t her fault, it felt like her fault.

“Well, if you have your fist in the Titanic, I can tell you that you’re sinking with the ship, Kat. We do our best. That’s all we can do. But you’re giving too much. You’re working at the expense of your social life. You’re working at the expense of your health! When did you last kiss a guy?”

“There was that guy in the pub a few weeks ago.”

“That was in June. And the fact that you remember it so clearly means you’ve had no action since. And by the way, one drunken kiss in a pub does not a relationship make.”