She rolled onto her back and looked at me. “You can’t think of anything? I guess that’s what it’s like being a hot billionaire. You’ve reached the zenith. There’s nowhere else to go. Nothing else to achieve.”
I laughed. “Hardly.”
“Okay, so then what? Like, let’s say you never created that algorithm. What would you be?”
I thought for a moment. “Okay. Don’t laugh.”
“I would never!”
“I’d have liked to teach math. Like be a professor or something.”
“I could see that. You’d be great at it.”
“Uh, standing at the front of a room with everyone watching me? I don’t think so.”
“Yes, you would. You were a great tutor back in the day—those middle school kids loved you.”
“That was one on one. Teaching a class is very different. You have to be on every single minute. You have to explain things exactly right, you can’t get a single word wrong. If you say something in error, you look like you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I’m not saying being a teacher is easy or doesn’t take preparation.”
“It doesn’t matter how prepared I am. I could plan a lecture, rehearse it a thousand times, bring notes into the classroom with me, and still second guess myself to the point where I’m standing up there sweating and shaking, unable to even read my own writing because a hundred pairs of eyes are on me waiting for me to fuck up.”
She studied me for a moment. “Did this actually happen?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“A couple years ago, I was invited to give a guest lecture at M.I.T. to one of my mentor teachers’ classes, and I bombed.”
“Your mentor said that?”
“No. But I knew she thought that. And I knew every kid in that room was like, ‘who is this fucking hack and why does he make billions of dollars when he can’t even form a coherent sentence or write on the board without staring at every problem wondering if he wrote it right?’”
“Wow. That’s so cool that you can read minds.”
I frowned at her. “That’s what it felt like.”
“Sorry.” She snuggled closer. “But if I don’t call you out on this stuff, who will? It’s like Winnie with the Wicked Witch of the West.”
“Huh?”
“Everyone in my family always wanted to watch the Wizard of Oz, but that witch scared the bejesus out of Winnie. She would hide under a blanket every time the witch came onscreen. But then Frannie bought us a nonfiction book about witches. We learned the truth about where the idea behind evil witches came from, and how female healers and priestesses were accused of getting their magic powers from the devil when really, it was just terrible men trying to suppress women’s influence.” She stuck her tongue out at me.
“Sorry for all terrible men,” I told her.
“Apology accepted. Anyway, I think your fears are based on something you’re guessing at rather than something you know for sure. Just like a witch.” She brought two fingers together above her head, forming a pointy hat. “Not real. Feels real, but isn’t.”
“Okay, but that doesn’t make my nerves any better. The thoughts are still there. And they cause physical reactions I can’t hide.”
She sighed and cuddled closer. “Would you consider trying therapy again? This is going to make me sad that you have a dream to teach but won’t do it because of the witch.”
I paused. “My sister wants me to try acceptance and commitment therapy. There’s a woman in her practice who does it.”
“Can you get in to see her before you leave?”
“It won’t work.”
“How do you know?” She sat up. “This is something new, right? An approach you’ve never tried?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said stubbornly. “It won’t work.”
She looked at me for a moment. “You can read minds and predict the future. Maybe you’re the witch!”
I yanked the pillow from behind my head and swung it at her, and she toppled over dramatically. Rolling on top of her, I pinned her arms to the mattress. “Enough. I’m set in my ways and not going to change. Take me or leave me.”
“I never want you to change, Hutton. I’ll always take you. I just wish you could see yourself like I do.”
I kissed her, glad that she saw me in a positive light, that she thought I was capable of doing things I knew I wasn’t. It meant that I was doing a good job playing this role—this version of me that deserved her—and she couldn’t see the man behind the curtain.