“Hey, Dave,” I say, my eyes flicking back up to Maya. “Just showing Maya the ropes. It’s her first time climbing.”
He watches her for a second. “She’s a natural.”
Maya reaches the top of the route, slapping the final hold with an audible smack of triumph. She looks down at me, her face flushed and beaming, and I can’t help the wide grin that spreads across my face. “Ready to come down?” I shout up.
She gives two sharp tugs on the rope like I instructed, and I slowly lower her back to the soft mat on the ground. She unties her knot, her whole body buzzing with adrenaline.
“That was amazing!” she says, breathless.
“You were amazing,” I tell her. “You crushed it.”
She blushes adorably. “Thanks,” she says shyly before looking at Dave, “Hi, Dave. Nice to see you.”
Dave smiles. “Hey Maya, great climbing up there.” Then he turns his attention my way, “So, how’d the water cycle lesson go? You seemed pretty worked up about that one.”
I feel a flush creep up my neck. I’d complained to him about it during our meeting last week. Since I’m a first-year teacher and Dave is the head of the science department, we meet weekly so he can mentor me. Maya doesn’t know it’s my first-year teaching, though.
I shrug with a nonchalance I don’t feel. “It was fine. Better than the first time I taught it, anyway.” The first time I taught the lesson was during my student teaching. It did not go well, and my instructor had a lot of feedback for me afterwards.
Dave laughs. “That’s great. I knew you could do it.”
I try to redirect the conversation. “Yeah, thanks. So, who’s up for a climb?”
But Dave is on a roll. He turns back to Maya, his expression earnest. “You know, this guy is one of the best people I know. Seriously. Not many people would change careers and walk away from a six-figure salary to take a low five-figure job teaching science to elementary schoolers. Takes real guts.”
The air freezes. The words hang there, heavy and immutable. I watch Maya’s face. The happy, adrenaline-fueled glow vanishes, replaced by a look of profound shock, which quickly morphs into confusion. Her eyes dart from Dave to me and back again, as if she’s trying to reconcile two completely different images of who I am.
Dave finally seems to notice the sudden, crushing silence. He sees the look on Maya’s face and the panic that must be evident on mine. “Oh. Uh. Did you not… know that?” he stammers. “Man, sorry. I just figured… I should probably go warm up.” He gives an awkward wave and practically flees.
Maya doesn’t say a word. She just stands there, staring at me, her arms crossed over her chest. She looks smaller, somehow, and miles away. The wall is back, but this time it’s a fortress.
“Maya,” I start, my voice low. “Can we… let’s go talk for a minute.”
She just gives a short, sharp nod. I gesture toward the hallway near the locker rooms, a quieter, more private space away from the prying eyes of the climbing floor and hope I can find the right words to explain the part of my life I haven’t told her about.
The hallway is narrow and smells faintly of cleaning supplies from the nearby showers, but at least it’s quiet and mostly empty. The loud, energetic sounds of the climbing gym are muffled here, leaving us in a pocket of tense, echoing silence. Maya leans against the cool cinderblock wall, her arms wrapped tightly around her waist. She won’t look at me.
I clear my throat. The sound is too loud in the quiet space. “Are you upset that I lied?” I ask, the words feeling clumsy and inadequate.
Her head snaps up, and her hazel eyes finally meet mine. “Of course I am, Zachary. You told me you taught at another school. You built this whole backstory.”
“I know,” I say, my own hands finding my pockets, clenching into fists. “I know, and I’m sorry. I only said it because… I didn’t want you to think I was just some guy trying out teaching for a year to see if it fit.”
A flicker of confusion crosses her face. “What are you talking about?”
I take a breath, the memory still sharp and clear in my mind. “That first faculty meeting in August. Before school started. I was standing right behind you when you were talking to that other teacher. You were complaining about the people that switch careers because they think teaching will be easy, just to quit before the end of their first year. You called them ‘trier-outers.’ You said it wasn’t fair to the kids to have someone who wasn’t fully committed.”
Her arms loosen slightly, her posture shifting from defensive to something else. Surprise. “You heard that? I… I can’t believe you were paying that close attention to me.”
I don’t respond. I can’t. Because telling her why I was paying that much attention would mean admitting everything. It would mean telling her that from the moment I saw her in that bar, then outside of our apartment building chasing her ferret covered in pink paint, I was captivated. That even realizing we were coworkers couldn’t dim the spark I’ve felt since we first met. I’ve just been trying to smother it under the guise of professionalism, not wanting to mess up the fragile working relationship we’ve developed while sharing the trailer.
Instead, I offer her another truth, one that’s just as real. “I was terrified,” I say, my voice dropping. “Coming into this, I mean. I still am. Hearing you say that… it just clicked with this secret fear I had that I wasn’t cut out for this. That I was going to fail, and the kids would be the ones who paid the price.”
Maya stares at me, her expression softening completely. The anger is gone, replaced by a look I can’t quite decipher. “I’m astonished this is your first year,” she says quietly. “I truly am. You’re so good with the kids, Zachary. You have this ease with them, this way of making them feel seen. You’re more comfortable in front of kids than I was for my first five years of teaching. Honestly… I’ve learned from you.”
The confession hangs in the air between us. “Learned from me?” I ask, incredulous. “What could you possibly have learned from me? I feel like I’m making it up as I go ninety percent of the time.”
“Your excitement,” she says immediately. “It’s persistent. When Trevor told me I had to throw out what feels like half my lesson plans, I was just… defeated. It felt like another pointless requirement, another hoop to jump through. But watching you get so genuinely hyped about sound waves or the water cycle, it made me look at reconfiguring my lessons as an exciting challenge, not a chore. Yes, it sucks that I have to shelve lessons I love, but it’s also an opportunity. I’ve started looking up concepts I never thought about teaching, things I assumed were too advanced or complicated. But you have this way of taking something huge and complex and distilling it down into something a nine-year-old can not only understand but get excited about. That inspired me.”
