“You had said that it wasn’t going to be your first time, and you mentioned high school,” I said.
“Yea?” Becky asked, her voice laced with suspicion and uncertainty.
“Well,” I continued, now afraid that my plan might not make her as happy as I had thought, “we can right the ultimate wrong that was done to you.”
She backed away from me for a minute and looked around the room. She had a look on her face that reflected an immense amount of pain. “H-How do you suppose we do…that?” she asked. She stammered and her voice cracked as she spoke.
“Look, we won’t do this if it’s going to do this to you,” I said. I was immediately willing to put the whole thing to rest if she didn’t want to revisit this issue.
She finally looked back at me. She looked slightly irritated now. “You opened your mouth,” she said, “so just spit it out.”
I took a deep breath. Before I spoke again, the entire incident replayed itself in my mind. It was during our junior year of high school. She was dating a basketball player who had recently broken up with one the school bitches. As a matter of fact, this girl, Jaime Andersen, was The School Bitch. She could destroy anyone whenever she wanted. And she was jealous that her ex was now with Becky. So she spread a story around the whole school, with the help of her friends, that Becky had either slept with or given head to everyone on the basketball team during each of the previous three years.
The problem was compounded when everyone on the basketball team went along with the story too. I was never sure if Jaime had forced them to, as if she had something on them, or they did so willingly. Either way, it didn't matter. Becky's boyfriend, even though he knew Jaime's ways, couldn't stand the thought. He tried to ignore it but just could not after a few weeks. I guess everyone has their breaking point psychologically. He dumped Becky and went on to deal with the ribbing from his teammates. The only difference was that he could handle it since he was an athlete and treated like royalty at our school.
I stood up for Becky, naturally. No one really cared about what I said, though. The damage had already been done, and I wasn’t a person with any great deal of popularity or influence. I confronted Jaime about it several times. She kept making idle threats to me about what she’d do to me if I “interfered with her business,” but I knew she couldn’t say or do anything I hadn’t already heard. When I realized she wouldn’t break, I just moved on. I didn’t want anything to do with her. Becky thanked me for being so supportive, but she, like me, knew that my efforts were futile. Even if Jaime had decided to tell everyone the story wasn’t true, it either wouldn’t have been believed, or people would say the same things about Becky anyway.
As for the basketball player Becky dated, the rest of his time in high school wasn’t a good time either. He tore up his knee in a game during our junior year and it did not heal so that he could play the following year, either. During our senior year his behavior became pretty erratic and even his friends were having difficulty connecting with him. By the time of graduation he had practically become an outcast and didn’t seem too bothered by it. I tried to talk to him a few times, but he didn’t care about what I said. Every time I mentioned Becky to him, he looked like he would gladly put my head through a wall. He never did, though, as he could still control himself somewhat. But, sadly, he could not control himself completely. During my first year of college, I read that he was killed in a car accident. They later found that he was drunk and had been drinking heavily since his injury. I guess it explained a lot. Becky was very upset, since she still cared for him despite his treatment of her. It was just her nature. It took a lot for her to hate someone. She hated Jaime Andersen. Not only that, but she despised her very being.
All of this led me to be surprised why she was suddenly angry with my mentioning of the incident. She had made a reference to it first, so I supposed it wasn’t a taboo subject. It wasn’t as if I didn’t know the details, either. I knew exactly what it was that needed to be remedied. Becky also knew of the power of the ring. Surely she knew that we could do whatever we wanted with it. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to me.
“Becky,” I finally said, “we know what this ring can do. We’ve seen it and we’ve felt it and we’ve experienced it to the fullest extent. We can make it so that never even happened.”
She slapped me across the face. “God damn you,” she said as I rubbed my stinging cheek. “It did happen. Someone’s life was destroyed because of it,” she continued, tears forming in her eyes. “I got over it but someone else never did. And I don’t care how powerful the ring is, I don’t expect that it can bring back the dead,” she said.
The tears began to stream out of her eyes. Despite the fact that she had just slapped me, I still reached out to her and pulled her close to me. She didn’t try to strike me again or push me away. I just let her get the tears out of her system. After a minute or two of letting her sob, I offered my solution. “Becky, that’s not what I meant. Look, I know that would probably be asking too much. But that doesn’t mean we can’t still right the wrong.”
She forced herself out of my grasp and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Joe, it’s in the past. We can’t go changing the past, no matter what you may think. And besides, it’s not like I really have contact with anyone from high school.”
All of the points that she made were very valid. However, I was undeterred. “Becky, I know. But I don’t care. You had no reason to go through any of it. And I know that the people who helped spread the story, and then the people who believed it, knew that none of it was true. So as far as I’m concerned, we would just alter the present reality of what those people know to be true to be the actual memory of what happened.”
Her face softened. It seemed that my plan might be acceptable with her. “Joe, I’m sorry, it’s just that…I try not to remember. I try not to think of it. I supposed it’s my fault for making that remark in the first place,” she said. I didn’t say anything back. “But maybe you’re right. Maybe just having that peace of mind will help.” She frowned again before adding, “It still doesn’t help with the fact of what happened to him.” She never mentioned him by name for whatever reason, but she also didn’t need to with me.
“Becky,” I said, taking another deep breath. “He did that to himself. I know that might sound cruel, but he couldn’t control himself. Nobody made him drink. And nobody told him to get drunk and then drive. And we don’t know how much what happened with you led to that. He got hurt, he couldn’t play. Then his so-called real friends all started to abandon him. You had nothing to do with any of that. That was just more fuel to the fire. And there were probably a lot of other things that we don’t know about.”
I was fully prepared to be slapped again. She looked down at the bed and sighed. “I guess you’re right, Joe,” she said. “I guess I always feel for him. He still didn’t deserve it. I suppose if you think it’s going to help…yea, we can do that.”
I smiled. “OK,” I said, “here goes. I wish that what happened in high school when Jaime Andersen spread the lie about Becky and basketball team is no longer believed by anyone other than me, Becky and Jaime Andersen. I also wish that all of the people, other than me, Becky and Jaime, who heard the story then and believed it would realize that it could never have been true.”
Again the lights in the room flickered for a brief moment. It was starting to seem that non-physical changes would always do that. Becky had a confused look on her face. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Why did you leave that bitch out of the wish?” she asked.
I was glad to know that her feelings about Jaime hadn’t changed a bit. “Do you really want to let her off so easily?” I asked.
A light bulb seemed to go off in Becky’s head and she soon grinned at me much the same way I had to her when the idea first came to me. “Revenge?” she said.
I grinned back at her again. “Revenge,” I agreed.