Top of the Class (for guardianjohran)

[BrattyTeen]

(No problem, everything's been crazy for me to for the past bit as well)

Kathryn tried her hardest to make a break for it but Professor Hendrix stopped her. She didn't look at him, choosing instead to study her shoes. She was angry at being forced into this confrontation she'd wanted nothing more than to avoid. Her frustration and anger at herself for not studying things in detail bubbled over. "Just stop it! I'm not worth your time, why do you even bother?!" The girl clenched her fists so tightly that the nails dug into her palms, the pain helping push her forward. "I don't know how I'm going to pass this semester, I already had a test in another class and I made a C+! We all know that the only way I'm going to be able to stay is to make straight As." The teen stole a glance at his face and saw only concern and for some reason that made her even angrier. "Just let me crash and burn in peace." She stormed off, making for the door once more.

Kathryn had just gotten that grade back this morning, just before coming in for this quiz, so this had been the straw that broke the camels back for her. In all honesty she loved the material in both her classes, she got quite into it during lectures but she had still only looked over the material before the exam for a couple of hours, her studying habits were not the best.

As quickly as he'd given Kathryn her confidence and hope back, she felt it'd been snatched away and that was worse than never having any in the first place, it was a feeling in the pit of her gut like a writhing snake made of lead. Depression had threatened to drag her down last semester with all the lost sleep, bad grades and making no progress in her studies, just when she'd thought she'd outrun it's vice-like grip, it snatched her up again, worse than before, drowning her in doubt, fear and guilt. As much as she needed help she didn't know how to accept it, pushing the well-meaning professor away.

[guardianjohran]

When she faltered, and stopped, he stopped. Concern crossed his face. She was so worried about her performance, and he had thought she was doing so much better. So it shocked him when he saw her try for the door again, after pausing. But her words were his biggest motivator. Something changed in his demeanor at those words. That she wasn't worth the time, that she was a bother, That she didn't stand a chance. He stepped quickly in front of her, his body blocking her from the door. His voice was different this time than the last time he addressed her. Different than any time he had ever addressed her. His words were clipped, and stern, instead of friendly and rambling like usual. He pointed toward her with a finger as he spoke.

"Don't you ever... Don't ever say that again. Do you hear me. Never say you aren't worth it. Never say you're a waste. What happened Kathryn, you finally had to try, and it didn't immediately work out the first time so you're just giving up on yourself? You're going to let yourself fail, just like you keep telling yourself you going to? Why? Just so you can finally be right about something again? I get it. You almost failed out last semester. You're on thin ice. So what kind of person are you then? The one that walks through to the other side, or the kind that walks away? You -" And then suddenly he stopped talking. "-Survivor's guilt. That's it." And when he started talking again, it was as if he was in an entirely different frame of mind." "That's what it is, isn't it. You can't deal with this semester, because you're still living in last semester. Whether you realize it or not. You feel like you should have gotten expelled. Should have, but didn't. You feel like you got away with something. Like you're just here on borrowed time. If you fail out now, what's the harm, you should have failed out last semester anyway." A sigh. "That's it... Isn't it? You're living under the burden of your past actions. Trying to punish yourself for some wrong you feel you didn't actually encounter the consequences of..." He pushed up the sleeves of his sport coat, to his elbows, as he spoke.

"Well, I'm not going to let you do that to yourself. And I'll tell you what else. It's not your decision whether or not you're worth my time. It's my time, and I'll do with it what I please. Though I haven't been taking the right approach with it until now. I won't let you waste your potential. But I can't deal with you the way I would another student. Because you still need to feel like your actions had consequences before you can really move on." He rested one hand on her shoulder.

[BrattyTeen]

When he moved to block the door she was taken aback, she looked up at him, questioning, what could he possibly want to say? When he next spoke she felt her heart skip a beat and her skin felt uncomfortably tight all the sudden. She didn't know what to say, the teen had been stunned into silence. At first she felt quite embarrassed for the scolding he was giving her over devaluing herself but as his tone became a bit more patronizing Kathryn began to recover, substituting her surprise and confusion with anger. The anger came so easily, it was much simpler to focus on that than to accept the fact that everything he said was right. About the time he accused her of walking away her temper was a hairs breadth from igniting, about one more admonishing word away from throwing a punch when suddenly, he stopped.

She stood there, seething, feeling a bit like a caged animal when his demeanor changed once more. "Survivor's guilt." That phrase seemed to lodge itself in her head like a wrench into gears, everything jerked to a halt, she stopped being angry, she stopped wanting to run out the door, she just stopped. Kathryn seemed to be staring off into space when he went on to explain his theory but she heard every word, she just couldn't make her eyes focus or her muscles listen to her, he had hit the nail on the head.

There she stood, frozen, feeling numb inside. For weeks a monster had been clawing away at her insides and she had chased it aimlessly, always slipping from her grasp at the last moment before she could uproot it or even identify it, but now the uncertainty had been thrown off like a tarp and there it lay, exposed. Guilt...guilt for not being good enough, guilt for not trying hard enough, guilt for letting down everyone that believed in her and herself. How could she put everything she had into trying again when another failure would destroy her? Wasn't it better just to not try, at least then her soul would be spared the gut wrenching agony of inadequacy. What was to stop the same thing happening all over again, there was nothing! How could she move on, how could she forgive herself, this giant failure hung over her head like a terrible storm, ready to rip everything she'd worked and hoped for away. She deserved to fail, Kathryn concluded. A tear raced down her cheek only to stop at her jawline, not having enough momentum to fall, hanging morosely.

When he put his hand on her shoulder she snapped out of it, looking up at him again, he looked determined now. What he meant by 'deal with her' ? The student felt a bit uneasy, she wrapped her arms around her abdomen to steady herself. Would he help her? It seemed like he wanted to but what could he even do for her, even she had no idea what was going on in her dysfunctional brain. She didn't know what to say so she just spoke the truth. "I don't know what to do, Professor."

[guardianjohran]

He could tell his words stung her. And perhaps he had over reacted. But it just seemed like such a terrible waste to him. Her potential was good. And you don't waste what's good. A second chance to make a first impression was also good. Which is something she had even now. And yet she was wasting that too. Because she'd always believed in herself, and now she'd found an instance where simply believing in herself wasn't enough. And so she'd stopped. She'd given up on herself, rather than rising to the new challenge. No person was inherently a failure. Failure was something peope allowed themselves to do, not who they were. He sighed, when she said she didn't know what to do, and used the arm on her shoulder to turn her back toward the classroom as he spoke.

"Man I really seem to have a way of over reacting, don't I?" He softened his facial expression as he went on. "I forget to rein in my... fervor for the academics. I suppose that's it. Though, I can't help but wonder if it isn't a touch of familiarity, and so I just take hearing things like that a little too personally. I didn't mean to take that tone with you. The second tone, the derogatory one, I mean. The first time, no I meant that entirely. I won't hear of you degrading yourself. It's to be expected that you'd be on shaky ground at first though, so lets look at this rationally." He cleared his throat.

"First, you said you'd already had a test, and not done the best on it. Alright, so now you have to do very well on the others. But, consider this. If your other professor has already given you your first test of the semester, then he's likely to be on schedule to give more than the usual amount. Which means each will carry less weight individually in the final averaging of grades. Which makes it easier to recover from one less than steller experience, than say, if he had waited for your first exam, like in my class. See? So it's not hopeless, so I'm not letting you slip into sadness just yet." He sat down at the chair behind his desk to go on.

"As to your dealing with your guilt, I have a suggestion. A rather... unorthodox suggestion, but a suggestion none the less. You're punishing yourself. Being so hard on yourself, feeling so bad about yourself, it's a form of psychological abuse. One you're inflicting upon yourself. Because you're trying to balance the scales, for feeling like you got away with something. You're inflicting consequences on yourself from last semester. So, what I propose is this. What if I could lift that burden from your shoulders. Relive you of your guilt, and your need to punish yourself. By... just getting your punishment out of the way? So to speak? It's not University policy, what I'm suggesting. But, I had a first year something like your first semester, and, well, I can verify it helped me to move past it." He wasn't sure how to put this tactfully.

"So, Kathryn. I could punish you. Something like might have happened back home. You've done something wrong. You feel terrible. But once you've been properly punished, you no longer have to carry around that guilt, and free of it's weight, you can get on with your life."

[BrattyTeen]

Kathryn allowed herself to be steered back into the room, listening as he apologized a bit for his earlier zeal. "You don't have to apologize, you were right." In truth it had angered her at the time but now she realized that it had pissed her off because he was so correct, still it took a lot for her to admit that out loud. As he laid out a logical path towards recovering this semester she felt the weight on her shoulders lift slightly. Thinking about it now she couldn't believe she'd tried to avoid him earlier, he was just trying to help and indeed talking to him always did seem to give her an idea of what course of action to take next or at least making her feel better.

The teen stood in front of his desk as he sat down behind it, giving him her full attention, feeling very much as if she'd been called to the principals office. His description of why she was having difficulties moving on was on the nose but the proposal on how to deal with it was vague, but she gave him the benefit of the doubt. Hearing that it wasn't exactly sanctioned by the University scared her a bit but when he explained that it had done him good when he was younger she was somewhat appeased. "What did you have in mind, Professor?" The idea of no longer feeling guilty, not feeling like she didn't deserve to be here or like she didn't stand a chance was so freeing. Kathryn couldn't remember what that was like, it had been more than six months since she had felt so.

With that in mind, she didn't wait for him to reply before she piped up again. "Listen Professor, you've done a lot for me already and I know you want me to succeed as much as I want it myself so, whatever it is, I'll do it." Kathryn had literally no idea what she was agreeing to, as a shy, quiet kid who'd stayed out of most trouble and gotten good grades, her parents had never done more than take her computer and video games away as punishment. She was desperate, if she couldn't turn this around she'd fail out of college and all her dreams would turn to ash. She wanted to be a scientist, discover new things, save lives with her findings, and she couldn't do that with only a high school diploma. Even though she was desperate, however, she didn't agree lightly, she really trusted Professor Hendrix, one of the reasons she agreed without knowing is because she didn't want to risk chickening out. There she stood, resolved to whatever he decided, her mind coming up with any number of possible scenarios like doing all her studying in his office for the rest of the semester or keeping a log of how she spent her time. Those things weren't really discouraged by the University though so then her thoughts moved on to other things; not allowed to play video games or being grounded came to mind as things she'd previously suffered in her childhood. His student never suspected the real truth, both because as a recently turned 18-year old she felt quite grown up and because that had never happened to her before.