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“If other students needed more time, I’d give it to them, too. However, I wouldn’t trust all of them to finish it outside my watchful gaze,” I teased.
She smiled and sniffled.
“So, what’s going on with your copy ofJane Eyre?”
Her face crumbled and her mouth turned down as she lifted the paperback. Everything seemed fine to me. Then she set down her backpack and opened her book to the middle where a page had been torn and taped, obvious damage done by a foot since there was a dirty footprint of a sneaker imprinted on the page.
“What happened?” I asked, taking the book, but still not sure why she was quite this devastated as she sobbed again.
“I was studying in the Commons this morning and needed more space, so I spread out on the floor against the wall near the three-hundred hall.” She had to stop and inhale shakily every couple of words as tears poured again. “Then that jackass Emmitt Sanders came running down the hall with one of his dufus friends and stepped right on it.”
I grabbed a tissue and handed it to her. While she collected herself, I took a closer look at the retaped page. Other than the footprint, she’d managed to stitch it back together fairly well. Minimal damage, really.
“You’ve mended it pretty well.”
She dropped her hand with the tissue, exhaling a frustrated sigh. “But look how it’s all messed up with my notes in the margin. And his dumb footprint all over my page. It was perfect before, and now he’s ruined it!”
First off, Katherine never cursed or talked badly about anyone. If she thought uncharitable thoughts, she kept them to herself or shared them only with her group of friends. So for her to blast Emmitt, who happened to be a jackass a lot of the time, she was quite upset.
“You can still see the notes pretty clearly,” I added, still not understanding why she was so upset about this.
“You don’t understand,” she hiccupped.
Apparently not.
“Katherine.” I handed back her book. “Explain why this has you so upset.”
“I just—” she started, then paused to take a breath. She finally met my gaze, looking absolutely destroyed over this.
My heart clenched, wanting to somehow make this anguish go away but not knowing how.
“It sounds stupid, but I love my books. Like Ilovethem. And this class, this unit, has been my favorite of all. I recognize so much of myself in Jane Eyre, and I’ve loved every second of studying this in your class.”
I gave her an encouraging smile to go on.
“I’ve preserved all of my books from this class and when you taught me sophomore year. I love that we take notes in the margins, and I can go back and relive our discussions when I reread the book. I love how perfect they all are, and now my favorite book is absolutely ruined. And I couldn’t calm down enough, so I did badly on the essay. And now my GPA is going to fall and I won’t be valedictorian.” She was working herself up again into a frenzy.
I put a comforting hand on her forearm. “Hey. These things happen.” I wasn’t about to say “it’s just a book” because obviously, to her, it wasn’t. “Sometimes things get ruined. I’m sorry that this one isn’t perfect, but—”
Then I stopped, dawning realization slapping me in the face.
The signs had always been there for Katherine, but I’d never internalized it because it had never upset the apple cart.
She was a perfectionist. Every quiz, test, and essay was completed flawlessly. When she’d miss an answer or I’d take off a point for her elaboration not being entirely correct, she’d stay after class and ask me a hundred questions to be sure she got it right the next time.
She reminded me of myself back in school, actually.
While perfectionism was an amazing catalyst for self-discipline and inner drive, I knew it sometimes got the better of a person and could cause emotional harm like this. I’d been the same way in college, pushing myself to be the absolute best because I needed all the hard work and money I was investing to be worth it.
When I was a freshman at LSU, Lola had to give me tough love and physically take my books away when I’d stayed up on a 24-hour bender of caffeine and energy drinks to study for finals. I was to the point of weeping at my bedroom desk, and she’d had enough. Thankfully, she made me realize that I was hurting myself and that it was okay if I missed some questions. It was even okay if I failed a test.
I decided to go for it anyway, not knowing if this was the right thing to do with Katherine. I turned and shuffled the papers around until I found my copy ofJane Eyre.
Turning to the page where hers had been torn, I ripped out the same page.
Katherine gasped, her eyes wide. I didn’t think she was even breathing.
“Why would you do that? That’s your teacher copy. Yournotes.”
