Chapter 60: Philosophy Redux

Saturday, December 3, 1983

At this point in the semester there were always papers to be polished, so Angie and I spent the morning proofreading each other’s latest efforts. My writing process in this life was completely different from that in my first life. In my first life, I waited until the last minute, then sat down and banged out a paper. My first draft was my final draft. What editing there was I did on the fly.

Not anymore, not with Angie and Jas and Study Group in general. We all read and reread each other’s papers, suggesting tweaks, finding things that should be rephrased, pointing out weaknesses in evidence and logic, and so forth. My papers were better than the ones I’d written in college (as they should be, probably), but Angie’s and Jas’s were better than those, too.

With every round of editing, all of us also became better at self-editing. When you see yourself repeatedly making a mistake it often becomes easier to stop making it. Not always, of course — we all have our foibles that keep popping up no matter how much we’d like to stomp them out. But there was clear progress, and that mattered both to us and to our English teachers.

To the point of things with Jas: this wasn’t cheating. The school’s honor code, and our teachers, clearly allowed (even encouraged!) students to help each other with proofreading. There’s sometimes a fine line between pointing out a problem and authoring the solution, but we knew where the lines were and were careful about them. The goal was to make lifelong improvements, not just some better grades in a few high school classes no one would care about in a couple of years.

We wrapped up the editing a bit after noon and joined Mom and Dad for lunch. After that, it was off to Jane’s office for our more-or-less regular visit.

We decided to keep with Ang going first. She’d undoubtedly steal most of my thunder, but that was fine. If Jane had any insights, she’d have more time to think of them if she heard about things from Ang.

There was no update from Sharon, but that was hardly a surprise. Everything about that process was slow. Once Angie was eighteen we might be able to speed things up, but Illinois law might still restrict how much contact Sharon could have. She was getting closer to having paid her debt to society, but they weren’t quite done with her yet. Even when she was, there would likely be halfway houses and parole officers and restrictions on who she could associate with.

I had to wonder if Max was getting close to paying his debt and, if so, if we’d know about it when it happened. I didn’t wish him any ill. As long as he didn’t go after me, or anyone that I cared about, he was welcome to live his life. Perhaps he’d learned something. I hoped so.

Ang came out after an hour (which I spent reading a book), and we touched hands briefly when we passed. Jane welcomed me at the door, and we headed back into her office together, hugging once we were safely behind closed doors.

“Angie told me about what happened with Jasmine, of course,” she said, as I settled into my usual spot and she settled into hers.

“I knew she would. It sucks. We’re all trying to be supportive without being overly supportive.”

“It can be a tough line to walk,” she said, nodding.

“She needs to know we all believe in her. That’s easy, because we all do, but...”

“But you know what Impostor Syndrome does to that.”

“Intimately,” I said, nodding. “It’s telling her that her friends will be the first in line to mock her once the truth is finally revealed, and that the truth is going to be revealed any second now.”

“You think she’s okay?”

“I’m sure of it right now. If she bombs the retake, that’s completely different. I strongly believe that she won’t, partly because she’s angry about it and that will give her some extra focus.”

“Good,” Jane said. “She can always talk to Doctor Wright, but getting through it on her own is best.”

“It is.”

“How are you handling it?”

I smiled a bit. “Trying to resist the urge to go all ‘White Knight’ in a whole variety of unhelpful ways.”

“I get the reference, but that’s an unusual way of putting it,” she said, smiling.

“Oops. Sorry! Not for 2020. People refer to ‘White Knight Syndrome’ fairly commonly — the need to go off and save people, whether or not they need saving.”

“Interesting. It makes complete sense, of course.”

“For me, this time, it means not going crazy pushing her to over-prepare or over-study or just over-stress about the whole thing. It means not charging off to attack Trish, who we don’t even know for certain is behind it. It means letting Jas handle it, for the most part, while being there for emotional support,” I said.

Jane nodded. “Again, that makes sense. Angie seems convinced that it’s Trish’s doing.”

“I’m pretty much convinced myself, but that’s not the same as proof. There’s not a shred of evidence so far. I have other enemies, but there’s not even any proof that it’s about me. It could be someone from another school who hates how good she is at Drama. That’s a stretch, but we just don’t know.”

“If you got the evidence?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Most likely I’d talk to Angie about it, but I’m not sure she knows. Trish cares about her standing with the socialites, going to the best parties, and maybe alcohol and drugs. We don’t know if that last part is accurate, though. I could anonymously rat her out for being on something-or-other, but I don’t know that she is. After that? Mike was my only real connection among the socialites, and he’s not doing anything, nor could he if he wanted to, I don’t think. I can’t get her kicked out of the right parties. There are the sorts of rumors guys spread about girls, but ... no. Absolutely not!”

“I was wondering if you’d considered that.”

“I’ve considered most everything. Would talking to her parents help? Unless the evidence was iron-clad, they’d ignore it. Even if it was at the level of her confessing, they might still ignore it. Parents are unpredictable. Maybe they’re thrilled that she’s exploiting every advantage.”

“So ... ignore it?” she said.

“It depends on how rough she plays. I don’t know what to do even if she starts playing really rough. It’s not a situation that I’m familiar with, and the rules aren’t the same as they’ll be in six months. If an adult goes after you, you can sue them or call them out or whatever. In high school, the rules are different. Even Angie and Jess aren’t a lot of help, simply because Angie was playing by socialite rules, and doesn’t have that relationship with them now, and Jess has been playing by cheerleader rules. My suspicion is that those groups overlap more at most schools than they do at Memorial.”

She nodded. “Otherwise?”

“Ride it out. It won’t matter in six months. We’ll be out of her hair, and she’ll be out of ours. It might not even matter in five months. We’re not interested in winning Prom King and Prom Queen. She can have her victory, and that might calm the whole thing down. Until then, unless she comes after us, we can just sit it out.”

“I think we’ve probably exhausted the possibilities there, for now.”

“Not exactly.”

“Oh?” she said, looking curious.

“It’s nothing to do with Trish, but a lot to do with ‘White Knight Syndrome,’ in a way, though this is certainly about people who needed saving, but no one did.”

“I’m not sure where you’re going.”

“The bombing in Beiruit. I knew it was coming. Not specifically — I thought it was later — but I knew it was coming. I’d decided to try to do ‘something.’ I don’t know what ‘something’ would have been, and it probably wouldn’t have helped, or been dangerous, but it’s still ... I’m not bothered by it day in and day out, but it still bothers me.”

She sighed. “It’s easy to forget that you have the weight of the world on your shoulders sometimes. No one else could be bothered by that in the way you are, except Angie or Laura.”

“Angie didn’t remember anywhere near as clearly. I don’t know about Laura.”

“Tell me how you feel about it, please.”

I talked for perhaps ten minutes about the whole thing. About wanting to save those Marines, and not knowing how, and feeling like I’d let them down when I read the news. About it not being my fault, but still something I could perhaps have done something about.

Just talking about it helped, which is — I think — part of what therapy should be for. Unburdening oneself onto a trusted confidante.

Jane listened, just nodding, or very occasionally taking a note. When I’d finished, she said, “I think your head and your heart are both in the right place, Steve. You can’t fix the world, and even trying to is dangerous for you — and for everyone around you. That doesn’t mean you should never try, but ... well, I’ll just ask. How many bad things happen over the next thirty-seven years?”

I threw up my hands a bit as she asked that. “You know the answer. Far too many! And I’ll forget most of them. There’s one coming up in a few years that’s a good counterexample. I don’t know when it’s coming right now, but I’ll know to within a few days when we’re months away. I know exactly what goes wrong. It’s entirely preventable, too. The problem, of course, is that no one’s going to listen to me. There were some experts at the time saying the whole thing was risky. So ... do I try? Not try? And then there’s a much, much bigger one seventeen years from now. That one I’m nearly certain about trying to change, but I have far more options, and there’s a lot more time to try to make changes.”

“Again, you’re on the right path. Weigh the risks, take action if you can do so safely, and so forth. But you can’t beat yourself up about everything. The Universe — or whatever — has put you here, but hasn’t given you the tools to make major changes right at once.”

“Thanks. I’m fine, I think, but ... this will stick with me. Not in a bad way, I think, so much as a ‘food for thought’ way.”

“If you see anything coming that you need help with, I’m always here,” she said.

“I know — but, also, thank you. We’re asking a lot more of you than most people could possibly ask of a therapist.”

“It’s unique, but that’s also the joy of it. Is that everything there for now?”

I nodded. “Yes. I think we’ve exhausted the possibilities there, at least until something else comes up.”

“Anything else new and unusual? Particularly of the unusual sort?”

“Actually, yes. Jas and I had a really interesting conversation that started with a fairly innocent question. Well, it’s fairly innocent given who I am. Otherwise it would be insane.”