I hated that she’d seen me like this, but I knew she wouldn’t judge.
“All right, Kara, you’re all about logic, so let’s break this down together,” she said. “I know you, so I have no doubt that you worked hard. And I understand you’re embarrassed, but no one made fun of you; a couple of the girls asked if you were okay, but everyone else just went back to the test, because that’s what people do—they worry about themselves. No one’s paying as much attention to you as you think, and that’s okay.”
I wanted to believe her, but I also knew that the worst of it wouldn’t happen in front of her. That would come later. I wondered whether Becca and Isabel were the girls who’d asked about me.
“You’re also going to get into college, and you’ll get out of Marbella too, if that’s what you want. You’re right that the SATs matter to a lot of places, so that’s something you’ll have to figure out some other time, but there are also schools that don’t require them, and some of those schools are fantastic. You have options. And I met your parents at parent-teacher conference night back when you were a freshman, and they were very loving and supportive.”
I did my meditation breathing while I listened to her. I liked that she knew me well enough to know that logic was the best way through this—if she’d just been all sympathetic and sweet, I’d have never stopped crying. “Okay,” I said, and tried to blow my nose as discreetly as possible. I hoped my makeup hadn’t smeared all over the place. “That helps.”
“Now, do you want to tell me what happened in there?”
“Panic attack,” I said from behind the Kleenex. It was getting easier to say it out loud.
“I’ve given you lots of tests and never even seen you break a sweat,” she said. “What’s different about the SAT? Or is it just the SAT?”
“It’s not just the SAT, but it’s mostly that. I just get so stressed out about it, because my scores need to be perfect if I want to go to Harvard, since there’s, like, nothing else interesting about me. I used to swim, but I don’t anymore, so now all my extracurriculars are just filler, and all the schools will know it. I have to ace this test. But if I keep losing it every time I try to take it, I’ll never get in.”
“If you’ve convinced yourself that you need perfect scores, then it’s no wonder you’re panicking every time you think about this exam. Perfection is an unrealistic aspiration.”
“That’s what my mom says. I should ‘just do my best.’” I made air quotes. “But we both know that’s not always good enough. She just won’t say it. She and my dad were both great students, killed it at Stanford, killed it in grad school. She can pretend that she doesn’t want me to be perfect, but she doesn’t mean it.”
“Maybe she does,” Ms. Davenport said. “Maybe you should take what she says at face value. Do what you can. Take the pressure off. All this pushing for perfection is damaging, you know. You’ve heard about what’s happening in Palo Alto.”
Of course I had. Everyone had. The papers were calling them suicide clusters. Kids who were scared of not getting into the right colleges didn’t see any other futures for themselves. I bet a lot of them felt like me. I don’t know what kept me from reaching that level of despair, but I felt lucky that I’d been able to avoid those kinds of thoughts.
“That’s not happening in Marbella,” I said.
“It could. Same circumstances—public high school in an affluent town, parents putting pressure on their kids to go to elite schools. I don’t want to have to worry about you.”
“You don’t have to,” I said. “Besides, I know I put a lot of the pressure on myself.” Which was true.
“Well, you need to find a way to let yourself off the hook, then.”
“I guess.” It was kind of a bummer to hear Ms. Davenport talking like a typical grown-up, which wasn’t usually her thing. She and Mom could say whatever they wanted about me not needing to be perfect, but I knew who I was competing with. My guidance counselor had basically admitted that if I didn’t make valedictorian and get near-perfect scores on the SATs, all the good East Coast schools would be out of reach. And all the best math departments were at research institutions, as Ms. Davenport well knew, and they all required the SATs. There was no getting around it.
“I hear the skepticism,” Ms. Davenport said. “Just tell me you’ll think about it. And that you’ll come talk to me if the pressure’s getting to be too much. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I will.”
“Now, can I call your mom to come get you?”
“She’s at work. I’m fine—I’ve got my car.”
“You sure you’re okay to drive?”
“I feel a lot better now,” I said. But it wasn’t true.