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For an instant, Matt feels like he’s ten again. A small kid, desperate to have anything remotely stable in his life. A kid who lost everything. His mother, his sight, his father, his life. Instead, all he has now is the old man, Stick. How could it all lead to this? One wrong move and he’s being hit by the old man. Again and again. Because that’s what he’s good at, isn’t it? Wrong moves seem to be all he can do. He stumbles. He can’t feel the moves correctly. He can’t perfectly anticipate the next thing he’ll do. Everytime he messes up, Stick punishes him. He’s being conditioned. Maybe next time he won’t mess up as much. Maybe next time it will be different. But, until then, he gets bruises that make it hard to sleep at night. According to Stick, the pain is good. He needs to get used to it. That’s what will make him strong. If he can ignore it, he will be better when he fights. Everytime Matt gets punished, it’s to help him face the pain better. It’s for the best.
Then, he’s fifteen. He got into a fight again. As a teenager, Matt fights a lot with the other kids at his school. He hates bullies and know-it-all assholes. When he hears someone insulting another kid – most times a younger kid – he can’t help himself. He needs to defend them. So he fights. He’s good at that, after all. Stick is long gone now, but his teachings are engraved in Matt’s mind. He hates to admit it, but the old man was right. All the pain he had to suffer through made him stronger, made him a better fighter. But, everytime, when the Sisters of St Agnes hear about this, Matt gets in trouble. The punishments aren’t as physical as when it was Stick – except when it’s the old Sister Rose, who still cherishes the physical punishments – but they still hurt him. It’s fine. He needs to be punished when he makes a mistakes. It’s for his best interest.
“You okay there, buddy?” Foggy’s voice comes to him, taking him out of his memories and back to reality. It’s not Stick or any of the Sisters from St Agnes in front of him, ready to make him pay for his mistakes. All he has is a paper on death penalty cases in the last decade and his mediocre B- grade. Of course he’s not okay. But he can’t say that, because it’s not normal. He has to appear normal. Normal guys don’t freeze when they get a bad grade on an assignment. Normal guys don’t have bad memories associated with failing. Normal guys don’t want to punish themselves for every single mistake they make. Normal guys–
“We’re here to learn, you know that, right? It’s okay, you can’t excel at everything instantly,” Foggy tries to reassure. But he’s wrong. It’s not okay. Matt should know this, should’ve done better. He doesn’t deserve to feel okay with his mistakes. He can’t be kind to himself. Being kind to himself means he’ll get soft. If he gets soft, he’s getting himself in danger. He shouldn’t make some stupid mistakes like this. Mistakes make him sloppy. Mistakes lead to being hurt. He needs–
“You’re gonna stay up all night again?” Foggy asks. And he’s right, this time. Matt doesn’t deserve to sleep. He has to study, until he’s sure this won’t happen again. When he’s stupid enough to make mistakes, he deserves to pay for them. That’s how it’s always been, for years. If he doesn’t get a perfect score, he needs to stay up until he can’t keep his eyes open. He needs to make sure he does enough to change that. He can’t let that happen again. He–
“Alright,” Foggy sighs. “But I’m not doing an all-nighter without caffeine, so you and I are going on a field trip to the convenience store for some red bull, buddy. And snacks.”
“What?” Matt asks, almost quietly.
“We’ll help each other. Study together, like good law students do,” Foggy simply explains. And, yeah, that’s not so bad. Matt likes this idea. As simple as that, his night ahead of him doesn’t seem so much like punishment anymore. Maybe he’s had enough punishment for a lifetime.