Epilogue

“ONE, TWO, THREE,” Oliver shouts.

“EYES ON ME,” the bar responds.

“THREE, TWO, ONE,” Oliver yells.

“DOWN AND DONE!” the bar screams back.

It’s the last day of school, so there are approximately forty-five-ish teachers at Tim’s this time. But I lost track after the fourth shot of bottom shelf tequila.

Plus a few more people.

Emmanuel’s partner Nick is here, an extremely handsome ( gasp ) finance bro. It’s irritating how good looking they are together.

Eloise is here because she was hot and wanted a margarita. She ended up staying for all the shots, and is now talking to Nick about something annoyingly finance related, like what a hedge fund is, and how it is not a gardening budget.

Oliver is here because teachers don’t want to drink with their administrators. So he’s not with his school, he’s with ours. Because he is no longer our administrator.

Which he fully capitalizes on, by the way, as he downs the fourth shot of tequila with the rest of us, slamming it down on the bar after he takes it.

And oh boy, is he a fun drunk.

He grins at me and the rest of the third grade team. “Let’s play a game!” he shouts, the corners of his eyes crinkling, a huge grin on his face.

We groan.

“Is this going to be like one of your annoying icebreakers?” asks Tamika.

“If I have to share what my ‘ why ’ is one more time…” Emmanuel threatens.

“Let’s do roses and thorns of this school year,” Oliver says, cheerfully ignoring them. “I’ll start. My thorn is when Max’s dad attacked the PS 2 community at the Fall Festival,” he says, kissing my hair. “My rose was finding out that PS 2’s state test scores improved by five percent this year.”

“My turn,” Emmanuel says. “My thorn was… that day when I had to cover Georgia’s class and leave Chaya alone, because Georgia was late.” He pauses for dramatic effect. “…because she had just gotten fucked into a coma by my boss .” He smirks. “But I kind of was living for that, too.”

“I paid you back for that!” I scream at him, Oliver smirking behind me.

“Nothing you do will ever be enough,” he sniffs at me. “And my rose…”

He stops short, looking somewhere behind us.

We all turn to see Chaya walking in, carrying a bundle of blankets, her husband Moishe not far behind her.

Emmanuel screams. “And my rose was when my beautiful work wife gave birth to a healthy baby boy!” he says, shoving us all aside.

It’s a blur of hugs and yelling. Emmanuel wraps Moishe in a big bear hug, tears in his eyes, while the women take turns hugging Chaya and the bundle in her arms .

“Can I hold him?” Emmanuel begs Chaya.

She smiles. “Of course.”

He gently takes the sleeping baby. “You are going to be so spoiled. Uncle Emmanuel is going to buy you a million things. And you’ll be so smart, because all of your aunties and uncles are teachers, and you’ll learn to decode by two years old…”

Oliver wraps an arm around my shoulders, and we look at them with awe.

After the baby’s been passed around and appropriately cooed at, Oliver urges us to keep playing the game.

“I didn’t have too bad a year this year,” Tamika adds. “My thorn was Dorothy’s story, but that was also my rose, too,” she says, “because I gained a new and wonderful student.” She thinks for a second. “Also my class’s Black History Month project. That was inspirational.”

Mia starts, but is interrupted by Elias, who comes over to join us, throwing an arm over her shoulder. Mia rolls her eyes.

Oliver narrows his. “This is an AB conversation—” he sneers at Elias.

Oliver told me he saw me with Elias that one Friday night after happy hour. He’s hated him ever since.

“Oop,” says Emmanuel.

Mia shrugs Elias’s arm off. “My rose was my class’s test scores. Ninety percent proficiency in ELA this year,” she says, smiling. “My thorn is when one of my kids fell off the stage during our Holiday Performance and broke his arm and his collarbone.”

Elias grins. “My rose?—”

Oliver bodily forces Elias out of our circle.

I think about what my answer is going to be.

There’s this feeling you get when you’re a teacher for several years. Some years are just better than others. You would never share this with anyone, especially never admin or parents, but there are some years when you just feel that this batch of students are winners, or at least more successful than in previous years. It can be for a variety of reasons, or because of a variety of factors. You, as the teacher, were just having a good year. Your class as a whole was better behaved. There was or was not a global pandemic. But I think this year is one of those successful years simply because I became a better teacher. Because of Oliver.

But also because of me. Because I also worked on myself. My therapist referred me to someone else, a cognitive behavioral therapist, who I’ve been meeting with every single week. She teaches me tangible strategies, things I can use daily to prevent a spiral, to prevent negative thought patterns. I journal. I do my homework. Well, not homework, but I practice every day. That’s certainly helped, too. I became healthier, more present for my kiddos.

I share some of my strategies with Oliver. The only thing he still tries to control is vegetables for dinner. He doesn’t say anything when I decide to hold off on looking for apartments for now. Because I don’t know where this thing between us is going to go, and I don’t want to lock myself into something. He doesn’t say anything when I decide to invest some of my savings. Safely. Thanks, personal finance self-help books.

Actually, he does say something. He tells me he’s proud of me.

I cut in. “My thorn was… well, it was also when Max’s dad attacked all of us at the Fall Festival. My rose was finding out that Dorothy and Max had a playdate outside of school. Their moms organized it.” I tell the group.

“That’s really great to hear,” Tamika says.

Oliver is inexplicably clapping like a lunatic, giving us all a round of applause. Then he gets quiet for a moment. “Can we have a group hug?” he asks us all, very seriously.

Cheering, we all huddle together, entwining our arms.

“I was untruthful, you know,” Oliver says later. He is the love of my life, partially because he is the only person I know who would use the word “untruthful” in a sentence. He sways towards me. “About my actual rose. My rose was seeing you for the very first time in the school garbage dump and telling you where the methadone clinic was,” he tells me, giggling. “Because I’ve loved you ever since that moment, I think.”

“I was lying, too,” I tell him. “My rose was when you called me down to the principal’s office, spanked me, and then fucked me over your desk.”

His eyes become all pupil.

“Just kidding. Mine was finding you. And I think that will be my rose for the rest of my life,” I tell him, and he pulls me in to wrap me in my safe place.

I am bold. I am brilliant. I am brave. I am loved.