There had been some requests for a guidance story where Jade and Beck get relationship counseling. I hope this satisfies that itch.
Sorry that I haven't been around much. Graduated with honours (and three awards!) and started an incompatible job two days later. Now I am still trying to figure everything out, but finally got back to my keyboard. :)
…..
Although Lane saw a lot of kids and knew that he was technically not supposed to have favourites, it was hard to avoid caring about some of the kids a little more than others. Jade was one of those.
Although the first time he met her she spent the entire hour meeting ranting at him and kicking furniture until she wore herself out about five minutes before leaving, Jade's visits had ... improved. Over time, she had stopped constantly kicking the furniture and turned more toward a sarcastic humour that made him chuckle to himself after she left. She would sometimes lean forward with her elbows on her knees, her green eyes gleaming with delight as she tossed insults at him in a determined attempt to make him quit. He knew that was her plan because she would joyfully (for her) inform him of that fact at least three times a session. And although he had moments where he wondered if he had any impact on the youth of Hollywood Arts, he never felt like that after a session with Jade. He might be exhausted, but her determination for him to leave indicated to him that she was concerned that at some point he was going to figure her out. So every insult, story that was far off topic, and stubborn silence somehow made him more invested. There was no way he was giving up on her when she so desperately needed someone on her side.
Due to this investment and the regular sessions, Lane was able to put together that one of the things that enraged Jade beyond all other things was when Beck flirted with someone else.
Lane gave her advice on how to remain calm, how to communicate her needs, how to establish boundaries and how to respect them. He did role play scenarios where he tried to help her come up with calmer reactions to perceived issues. But then they broke up. Lane could see that it crushed Jade's heart. He had hoped that if she was ready to break up, then she would be ready to move forward. But the sorrow deep in her eyes stretched out for weeks. That was when he knew that someday, he was going to hear of a wedding between Beck and Jade. He did not expect to get invited, but he did wonder for a few minutes what he would send as a congratulations message and small gift.
When Jade came practically bouncing into his office at last, he was thrilled to listen to her excited update of how she and Beck were back together. Sure, he had known about it already due to being in the crowd of the Full Moon Jam, but he was glad to hear about it from Jade's perspective. Her excitement was contagious, and he had hope that it would be the turnaround that she had needed.
Things seemed to go well until the break. Summer came and went, and the first week of classes seemed to go well, but then inevitably, she was back with watery eyes and a hardly contained sadness. If he needed any extra confirmation that she was upset, it was confirmed when she started wildly kicking the legs of his chair while he closed the door behind her.
"Jade," he sighed in a mixture of gentle censure, exasperation, and concern. "How about you tell me with words..."
"He went and flirted with someone else! AGAIN!" Jade half-screamed as she kicked his chair again.
Lane knew that she was referring to Beck, and a flash of frustration on her behalf rushed through his body.
"Where is he?" he demanded.
"Beck? Out at his locker, reciprocatinging goo goo eyes with that stupid transfer girl," Jade grumbled, plopping into a chair. Her eyebrows shot up when she realized he was heading out the door.
"Lane? Where are ... why should I care?" she muttered to herself. "Everyone leaves me out of the loop anyway." She was surprised again when Lane returned a minute later (interrupting her from trying to scratch a curse word into the wooden frame of her favourite seat), no longer along but being reluctantly trailed by a confused Beck.
"Why do you want to talk to me? What did Jade do now?" Beck muttered, not too happy at being called in to the guidance counsellor's office.
"ME?!" Jade yelled, but she instantly silenced when she processed that Lane was saying something in his irritatingly calm manner, not to her but to Beck.
"Why don't we focus on your actions, Beck, and let Jade worry about her own." That was not common advice - advice that she rather thought Lane did not follow himself - but she liked the sound of it. So, she shut up, leaned back in the swingy chair with folded arms, and waited to see if she was going to be inevitably let down.
She was not.
"Me?" Beck asked, flustered. "What did I do?"
"Were you purposefully trying to antagonize Jade?" Lane asked bluntly.
Beck flushed a bit, something that was telling as Lane had not even directly stated the problem. Beck was not a great liar, something that was clear now in how his words and actions came across. For an actor, he was not pulling off the role of "unconcerned and innocent" very well. Beck stuttered a little with embarrassment as he answered, "Why ... why would I do that?"
"I don't know. Why do you think?" Lane continued pushing directly. Jade was relieved he was not letting Beck get away with a few weak protests.
"I ... I don't do that," Beck muttered weakly.
"Like he...ck you don't!" Jade protested in an angry burst. So much for letting Lane handle it, although as he turned and gave her a longsuffering look and motion to calm down, she took a deep breath and tried to "reevaluate her emotions" or some other complicated string of words he had taught her again and again ... and again.
"I know that you do regularly do something that upsets her, so let's address that now. The flirting, Beck. Why does it happen and do you have any intentions of stopping it due to how much it upsets Jade?" Lane said briskly. This was not a talk he wanted to drag out for a long time. Although maybe with other students he would have taken a more diplomatic approach, he knew that Jade did best with directness, and if he wanted to be able to moderate a proper discussion, he would need to go fast enough that Jade would not get frustrated and think he was overlooking her concerns. Beck would just have to deal with the brusqueness.
"I'm not flirting! I'm just kind to others - something she doesn't know enough about because she's never kind - so she says I'm flirting," Beck snapped, the embarrassment having a rather bad effect on him. Jade's eyes went cold in a recognizable manner to Lane. He knew that she was being sparked into a deep anger at the unjust accusation that was touching on one of her deep fears of genuinely being a bad person rather than simply currently being inept with social cues.
"Do you really think Jade is unkind?" Lane asked quietly.
Beck's eyes darted over to Jade and repentance dawned on his face.
"No ... not really, I guess, at least not all the time."
"Tell her, not me."
Beck looked down at his shoes. "Sorry, Jade."
Lane assessed Jade's body language. The apology was not making progress. "Explain it to her. Why was what you said incorrect?" he prompted.
The extra guidance seemed to help Beck get his footing again. "That was the wrong way to say it. What I meant is, sometimes you're not kind. You are kind to certain people, like Cat though, and, you know, usually me," he softly admitted.
Lane could see that the validation was landing well with Jade. Her body language was switching from shut-down-in-anger mode to a much more manageable quietly-frustrated-but-listening mood. He decided to strike while the iron was hot.
"You both need to figure out this relationship and what you want out of it. This kind of bickering and antagonizing - it goes on far too much and it's time for the two of you to truly work on improving it or remove yourselves from the situation."
"Remove?" Jade asked with a slight shake in her voice.
"Break up - for real. If you both are going to be content with being miserable, that's wrong. You both deserve good things in life - yes, Jade, really. You can stop rolling your eyes at me every time I turn my back. You both deserve to be in fulfilling relationships. It doesn't have to be romantically - overall, kids your age are better off developing lifelong friendships than romantic relationships - but you do deserve to have good support systems in place. You've already given this a chance. Is it worth it to you both to try to work on the big issues, to value one another's feelings, to build trust between each other, or not? By this point you both know each other, and it's time for you to take a good hard, honest look at yourselves as individuals and as relationship partners, and decide if this is worth it to you. If not, just ... be done so you can both move on and stop hurting each other."
With that, Lane took a risky move and left the room, letting the latch click definitively behind him.
There. I gave them "guidance". It's about time some adult talked to them like that. And hopefully I did not completely shatter any ethical boundary in doing so. It's not like Jade listens to me half the time anyway.
As Lane got no calls that evening saying he was fired, he assumed that at least his advice was not taken too aversely. Jade did not mention Beck at all in her next meeting with him, but he noticed that she was with him all the time in the hallways (with Lane having to issue a warning at one point on how close they were to transgressing the boundaries of appropriate PDA between classes). Over the next year, although she had plenty of issues, provoked jealousy over Beck's affections never came up again as a current problem.
Maybe guidance counselling could work after all!
And if, a few years later in life, there was a personal notation penned as a heartfelt postscript to a thank you card for a wedding present he had truly sent with best wishes, Lane could very well credit himself with his role in helping to preserve a little of the good and excising a little of the bad in Jade and Beck's teenage relationship.