By the time he turned thirteen, he had stopped pretending.
There was no point in holding back anymore.
For years, he had tried to blend in, to not outshine his classmates, to avoid making Ross feel insecure. But the truth was, it was exhausting. He was done making himself smaller just to make others feel comfortable.
He wasn't just smart. He was brilliant. And he wasn't just athletic. He was gifted.
It was time to act like it.
A New World of Knowledge
Middle school had been tolerable, but high school? That was different.
For the first time, he wasn't the only smart kid in the room. Advanced placement classes were filled with students who wanted to learn. Teachers pushed him to think deeper, to explore beyond textbooks.
And best of all, he met people who challenged him.
Dr. Eric Langston, his physics teacher, was one of them.
"You remind me of the kind of student who doesn't just ask how something works," Dr. Langston had said one day after class. "You want to know why it works. That's a rare mindset."
The compliment stuck with him.
Soon, he found himself staying after school, discussing quantum mechanics with Dr. Langston while the janitor locked up the classrooms. He read college-level textbooks for fun, absorbing everything from astrophysics to biochemistry.
The world had rules, patterns, formulas—he could see them, understand them, bend them.
And for the first time, he allowed himself to enjoy it.
The Athlete & The Genius
But he wasn't just a prodigy in the classroom.
Basketball had become more than just a hobby—it was an escape. The court was the one place where intelligence didn't matter, where instincts and skill ruled.
His natural athleticism made him a star, but it was his mind that gave him an edge. He didn't just play—he analyzed. He could read defenses like equations, and predict plays before they happened.
Coaches noticed. Teammates noticed.
"Kid, you're a natural," Coach Harris, the varsity basketball coach, told him after a scrimmage. "You ever think about going pro someday?"
He didn't answer right away.
Because honestly? He didn't know what he wanted.
He loved science. He loved basketball. He could do anything.
And that was terrifying.
Ross, Monica, and the Changing Dynamic
By now, Ross had accepted that his little brother was smarter than him. It had taken years, but he finally realized it wasn't a competition. They were just different.
Monica, on the other hand, had fully embraced her role as his biggest supporter.
"You're like a superhero," she said one night as they walked home from a diner.
He raised an eyebrow. "A superhero?"
"Yeah. You're, like, freakishly smart, you're a crazy good athlete, and you've got that whole 'brooding genius' thing going on." She smirked. "If you ever build an Iron Man suit, I call dibs on being your sidekick."
He laughed. "Noted."
The Moment Everything Changed. At fifteen, he had his first true moment of realization.
It happened at a lecture at Columbia University.
Dr. Richard Paxton, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, was giving a talk on the nature of time and space. His parents had pulled some strings to get him a seat in the audience.
For an hour, he listened, fascinated. But as Dr. Paxton spoke, something clicked in his mind. A pattern in the equations—a flaw in the logic.
At the end of the lecture, when the floor opened for questions, he stood up.
"Dr. Paxton," he said, "if time is a dimension, like space, then wouldn't your theory contradict the principle of locality in quantum mechanics?"
The entire room went silent.
Dr. Paxton stared at him.
And then, to everyone's shock, he smiled.
"What's your name, son?"
He swallowed. "Uh, Geller."
"Well, Mr. Geller, you just asked a question that most PhD students wouldn't even think of. Let's talk after this."
That conversation changed everything.
For the first time, he wasn't just "the smart kid." He was among people who spoke his language and saw the world the way he did.
And in that moment, he knew.
He was done hiding.
This was his world now.
And he was ready to own it.