I realize it’s obvious that I need to do real teshuvah here, and I need to ask mechilah

Dovid drove home from Ari’s vort, deep in thought. All this time, he’d relied on his inner compass to steer him in the right direction, and obviously, it had taken him on a wrong turn. He pulled into his driveway and cut the engine, itchy to process his tangled thoughts out loud.

He let himself in through the back door right off the kitchen. Thankfully, his mother was still awake.

“Hi, Ma,” he said and sat down heavily on one of the iron chairs around the kitchen table.

“Hi, Dov,” she replied. “Perfect timing. I’m waiting for my apple crisps to cool, and I could use the company. How was the vort?”

Dovid frowned. “Fine,” he said, and scrubbed a hand over his face.

His mother waited patiently.

“I need your advice, Ma,” he said, getting right into it.

His mother took a sip of her tea. “Of course. What’s the problem?”

Dovid sighed. “Basically, a few months ago, I saw something going on that I thought had the potential to really hurt someone who wasn’t viewing the situation clearly, so I did something a little… unorthodox… to try to influence the person to see things how I saw them. They didn’t see things my way in the end. I’m not upset about that, exactly, because I really didn’t want to be right in this situation, but I just feel bad that I might have… I don’t know. Overstepped? Gone too far? I’m not sure.”

His mother shot him a level look. “Dovid, what on earth are you talking about?”

Dovid groaned. “Fine. I’ll just tell you. It’s too confusing to hint at it.” He looked away.

“Do you remember I was asking you what to do about Ari a few months ago? I’ve been his chavrusa for a long time. He’s been good to learn with. He really forces me to get into things. But I have also gotten to know him pretty well, and he has some real challenges with his personality and his middos. I remember him from yeshivah days… he’s always been like this. That’s why I’m crazy medakdek with boundaries and stuff, and it works for me.” He toyed with his key fob, popping the valet key out and pushing it back in, out and back in.

“In all these years, I’ve never seen Ari date seriously, and he for sure never spoke about his dates with me. So when he started this parshah I felt like… I don’t know. Like maybe I had an achrayus. Not necessarily to end the shidduch, but just… If a guy like that was dating Etty, I would want people to do anything they could to show her what the reality was. Even if it hurt her in the moment.”

“Oh, Dovid,” said Mrs. Gutmacher softly, and he couldn’t look at her.

“I just thought it would help,” he said. He felt so utterly, naively stupid at how things had played out.

“What… what did you do?” asked his mother.