"Then you'll return? Next year?"
"Was that a question?" I asked on a surprised laugh.
Lauren leaned back, crossed her arms over her torso. "Honestly? Yes. I wasn't sure you would want to stay here or move back to New Hampshire. You wouldn't be the first person to relocate from far less urban areas and immediately want to leave. We've seen a bunch of staff move from western Massachusetts or out in Connecticut and feel like the city was too much, too expensive, too loud, too cramped. I get that, by the way." She motioned to the purple Williams College pennant hanging behind her desk. "It was some epic culture shock coming here after being out in the woods. Aside from the change of scenery, I wasn't sure this setup worked for you. This isn't a traditional district setting like you're used to and it's completely valid to prefer that type of environment."
"I don't want that," I replied, though it wasn't clear what I was rejecting with that statement. This was obvious from my boss's alarmed expression. "Sorry. That came out wrong. Sometimes, I get anxious or overwhelmed, and don't say what I mean."
"I know, Jory. And I know you've modeled real-time coping strategies to our students this year, whether intentionally or not. That's important. That's meaningful. Teachers are humans too and their social-emotional experiences are as relevant as those of our students. Showing them how to name their feelings and work through them is one of the most lasting lessons you've taught this year. I hope you recognize this as an accomplishment."
I nodded several times because I knew my voice would crack if I spoke right now. I'd always known—even when freaking out over this meeting—that Lauren was fair and deliberate in her leadership, and always concerned with doing right by kids and staff. But now I knew it.
"I've never had the same teaching assignment twice," I confessed.
"I know. I hired you, remember? I know where you've been." She grinned. "I bet it put a tremendous strain on you. I can't imagine bouncing around for years. But all that bouncing turned you into a highly competent teacher. One I'd fight to keep."
"Thank you," I said because nothing else seemed right. "I'd like to stay…and chair the science department. And the STEAM collaborative too. I want to do that."
Lauren closed the folder and pushed it toward me. "That's a relief because I've already submitted your registration forms." She reached for another folder and handed me some stapled papers—a copy of my evaluation. "Now that we have all of that business out of the way, let's talk about the lesson I observed. As you'll see, I found it to be effective and engaging. There's a fabulously long list of things that were very strong, but I bet you're itching to hear everything else. Right?"
I nodded. I wasn't a masochist but my anxious brain struggled to accept positive feedback. Something was always wrong, always in need of improvement. It wasn't that I assumed the worst. No, my brain just believed something bad was always coming my way and I couldn't allow department chair roles and amazing professional learning opportunities to seduce me away from the kind of vigilance required to stay mentally safe.
"That's what I thought," she said. "I have a few questions and some simple spots where you could push students to use more content-specific vocabulary and integrate some of the summarization strategies they've learned in Kerrin's history classes. That strategy translates beautifully between science and history, so you should lean into that wherever possible. Ready to dig in?"
My brain was anxious and I fell into frenzies and there were tornadoes inside me, but more importantly than any of that, I was staying here. That knowledge washed over me like a kettle coming off the heat—it didn't stop whistling right away but the worst of it was over.
Staying meant not packing up my classroom in a few weeks, not driving around with my books and supplies in the trunk of my car all summer because I didn't have space in my apartment. It meant I could find a new apartment, one without a tyrannical roommate, and I could do that without simultaneously looking for a new job. Better yet, I could find a new apartment for me and Max. He could finally get out of his sister's basement and we could live together.
What would it be like to fall asleep together every night? To share a space all our own? Would we make traditions together, like movie night or meatless Monday? Would we host game nights and dinner parties like his friends and decorate for every little holiday just because we could? Like Pi Day and Star Wars Day and the arrival of the Perseid meteor shower?
Or would we get on each other's nerves? Would our styles and sensibilities clash? Probably not. And if they did, I'd compromise. I'd bend. I didn't care if we decorated our home like a sports bar, I really didn't. My opinions on home furnishings were not nearly as essential to my happiness as Max.
Oh, Max. That man was something special. I'd never known what it meant to have a partner until he rescued me from that sidewalk last summer. He supported me in the most essential ways, and I wanted to give him as much as he offered me. I needed to do that for him because he did everything for me. Now that I didn't have to pack up and start all over again next year, I could do this. We could do this.
"Yeah," I said, nodding. "Let's go."
8
Max
Jory: It went so well!
Max: I knew it! Great job, babe.
Jory: More good news to share. I'll tell you everything later.
Max: Can't wait. Have an awesome day, babe.
Jory: Love you.
Max: You too.
I was supposed to be coaching the track team.
For the most part, I was doing that. "Dale, McKee, Fortunato, Herzgood—this is not a tea party," I shouted while I jogged in place, waiting for the seventh grade stragglers to catch up on our three-mile loop of the streets surrounding the campus. "If you're chatting, you're not running hard enough. Let's go. Pick it up, men!"
But I was also watching the school's side parking lot, the narrow one reserved for visitors because I caught sight of Jory exiting the building over there. That was weird for a whole bunch of reasons. He was parked in the staff lot—I knew this because I'd followed him here from the juice bar this morning—and he seemed to be waiting for someone. I was far enough away to be wrong about that but there was something about the way he stood, his messenger bag hanging from his shoulder and his gaze tracking each car as it passed.
He didn't mention anything about a meeting after dismissal.
Not that we were planning to hang out this afternoon. I was coaching until five thirty, and Jory liked to maintain a routine of leaving the building no later than five each evening. He went swimming at the YMCA or visited the library to unwind from the day before heading home. His routines were important to him. He would've told me this morning if he was doing something different today.
I continued jogging to keep pace with the team, but I couldn't tear my gaze away from Jory. What was he doing? Why was he waiting there? What—or who—was he waiting for? And why didn't I know about it?
The thing about Jory—and I loved it just as much as I loved the rest of him—was he shared everything with me. He hadn't held back since that first night when I dragged him all over town while he grimace-grinned through his misery.