I am sitting in my car in the driveway and the engine has been off for twenty minutes. It is 2 AM. I am 22 years old and I am a high school history teacher. My parents think I have achieved a high level of stability for my age. I can see the blue light of the TV through the neighbor's curtains. Everything looks correct from the street—the lawn is edged, the trash cans are in the garage. But I have this physiological response every time I open the state-issued textbook for 11th grade American History. It is a tightening in the chest, a slight increase in heart rate. I am observing a physical rejection of the material I am forced to recite. Today we covered the "Expansion into the West" section. I stood at the front of the room under those flickering fluorescent lights and read the bullet points about manifest destiny. The textbook uses words like 'settlement' and 'opportunity.' I watched thirty teenagers stare at me with varying degrees of boredom. I could feel the disconnect between my vocal cords and my brain. My brain was firing off data points about the actual casualty rates and the specific treaties that were ignored, but my mouth kept moving through the approved script. It is a strange form of dissociation. I am watching myself lie to children for a paycheck. I live in a neighborhood where the lawns are cut to exactly three inches and everyone has a sticker on their SUV for some local sports team. My dad told me how proud he was that I got a job in this district. He said it was a "good, respectable path." To keep this path, I have to maintain the standard. I wear the ironed khakis. I drink the coffee from the breakroom. I follow the curriculum map down to the minute. If I deviate, if I tell them what actually happened in the 1800s, I lose the stability. I lose the respect of the people on this cul-de-sac. The cost of being honest is higher than I can currently afford. The classroom smells like old paper and floor wax. I have these posters on the wall of the Founding Fathers looking noble. Sometimes I look at them and I feel this intense surge of—it’s not exactly anger, it’s more like a systemic malfunction. A glitch. I was handing out the quiz on the "Colonial Era" and my hands were actually shaking. I had to grip the edge of the desk to keep the tremors from being visible. One student, a girl in the front row who actually pays attention, asked why the book didn't mention the specifics of the middle passage. I told her we had to stay on schedule for the state exams. I felt the bile in the back of my throat. I am 22 and I am already a liar. I’ve started cataloging these moments like symptoms. Increased perspiration during Chapter 4. Insomnia following the lecture on the Industrial Revolution. I am observing a steady decline in my ability to reconcile the person who knows the history with the person who teaches the LIE. It’s like two different operating systems trying to run on the same hardware. Eventually, something is going to crash. I can feel the heat behind my eyes right now. It is a sign of extreme fatigue or maybe a repressed emotional outburst that I am currently preventing through manual breathing. I’m typing this on my phone and the screen is so bright it hurts. I haven't even taken off my tie yet. I just keep thinking about the kid who asked the question. She wanted to know the truth and I gave her a timeline of events that had been bleached white. I am a part of the machine now. I am the one who ensures the next generation doesn't know why things are the way they are. I am a tool for the state. It feels heavy—not like a metaphor, but like a physical weight on my shoulders that makes it hard to sit up straight. I can feel the tension in my trapezius muscles. It is constant. In the teacher’s lounge, they talk about their commutes and their lawn care. They don’t talk about the books. They don’t seem to have the same physiological reaction to the curriculum. Maybe I am the one who is malfunctioning. I sat there today eating a turkey sandwich while the guy who teaches Government talked about his new pressure washer. I wanted to scream that we are participants in a MASSIVE COVER-UP, but I just nodded. I asked him what PSI the washer was. The response was 3000. I recorded this interaction in my head as "Successful Social Mimicry." Admitting this here, in this dark car, is doing something to my breathing. It is becoming more regular. I’ve spent months pretending I’m just "tired from the new job" but the reality is that I am disgusted by my own complicity.