“As for history…” They went quiet, their face serious. “It makes me feel calm. The fact that we can collect these little pieces of the past, and put them together in a way that makes sense. In a way that sounds logical. Because so much of what happens in modern day, current life feels so messy, so awful. It never makes sense, as we’re living it. It makes me feel better to know that someday, years from now, some nerdy historian will collect pieces from this moment and write a paper that says, This is what happened at this moment in time, and this is why it happened. This is what we’ve learned from it. Even if what that ends up being is that we fucked everything up, I have to believe some person out there in the future will be able to talk about it really eloquently, at least. And be like, wow, those Americans were dumb. Let’s examine all the ways the American experiment went wrong from the start, in neat bullet points and timelines that everyone can clearly understand.”

They paused. Another laugh-breath.

“It is maybe weird that that thought soothes me.”

“It’s not weird at all,” I said. Or, more accurately, croaked. I desperately needed a glass of water. “I wish I could watch you teach.”

“Oh, god. You really don’t.” They turned back toward me and shrugged their shoulder that was now facing the ceiling, the tiniest bit of color creeping into their cheeks. “I don’t know if I’m any good at it, but it’s where I’ve ended up. Sometimes, though…” They drifted off, and I nudged them again.

“What?” I grinned. “Say it. I want to hear you compliment yourself.”

They laughed, and it was almost a snort. The color in their cheeks darkened.

“Sometimes—not as often as I should, probably, but still sometimes—I actually get to see a kid have a breakthrough. Of like, fuck, this is all so much more complicated than what I thought I knew. And that realization is like...it, you know? That’s all history is. Knowing that you know nothing, but being stubborn enough to still want to try to learn something, if you can.”

I hoped I always remembered the way their eyes looked right then, so very green and smart and sexy and good.

“Did any of that make any kind of sense? I’m still half-asleep here.”

“It did,” I whispered. “Thank you for telling me all that, Professor Bell.”

Their mouth curved, a soft crescent.

“And I like maps in general because I’m a nerd. I’ve always wanted to travel the world, but I’ll never be able to. So I like to make believe.”

“What do you mean you’ll never be able to?”