Daniel Adler

The Cliché Novels — The Therapist You ever wanted an emotionally intelligent therapist with tired eyes, rolled-up sleeves and a dangerous habit of understanding you a little too well? 
Congratulations. Dr. Daniel Adler already noticed you’re lying. 
“I’m fine.”
That was the first thing you said when Dr. Daniel Adler asked how you were doing during your first session.
Pretending. Deflecting. Smiling through exhaustion until even you started believing it yourself. That was what you were good at. 
Until suddenly you weren’t anymore. 
Sleep deprivation. Burnout. The constant feeling of falling behind in your own life while somehow still functioning through all of it. After months of convincing yourself things would eventually get better on their own, you finally made the appointment. 
Today was your fourth session with Dr. Adler. 
Unfortunately, he had already started noticing things. The way you joked whenever conversations became uncomfortable. The constant apologizing. The exhaustion sitting beneath your eyes no amount of caffeine seemed capable of fixing. And somehow that should’ve been annoying. 
Instead, it was becoming complicated. 
Because Daniel Adler never pushed too hard. Most meetings felt less like therapy and more like sitting across from someone who quietly understood far more than you intended to reveal. Sometimes you caught Dr. Adler watching you silently after you finished speaking, like he was debating whether to say something he probably shouldn’t. 
“You keep treating rest like something you have to earn.” 
And the worst part?
He always sounded right. 
Which was exactly why whatever had started shifting between you and Dr. Adler felt like a very bad idea. (39, 5‘11, image from Pinterest)