Cabin Nine [[Revised Edition] Under FURTHER Revision]

Thirty-Four

I finish college with the intention to teach high school English classes.

Because Jack's going for a master's degree, I move to Connecticut. We move into our own apartment because Pam hates me with a passion. It's mostly because she's a mess and unwilling to adapt even a little bit to my standards.

I mean, it's even hard to live with Jack in the beginning.

He has all of these annoying little habits. He never picks up his socks. He always throws his keys and coat on the floor right when he comes home. His shoes are all over the place. He can't cook at all and frequently leaves trash on the kitchen counters. They're small counters. They fill up fast.

But we solve it. He gets a special bin for his socks. We add a coat rack and key bowl to the entryway. I threaten the quality of Jack's shoes and he quickly gets them all lined up and safe from harm. As for the trash on the counters, he sucks at picking up after himself anyway. So instead of getting angry with him, he has one part of the counter for himself and cleans it up every few days.

I'm sure I have annoying habits that he hates but he doesn't really say anything. I try not to get in his way since I'm home all day and he has to be at school all day. So I take up writing again. I stopped to focus on schoolwork because academics aren't really my thing.

After a few months, I get a job as a temp and my days aren't so boring. I just get to be bad at something for a few weeks and then be bad at another thing and repeat the cycle.

Along with the money from Mom and Dad, we get by. It's a nice life.

Two years later, Jack finishes up all the school he needs and immediately gets a job in Arizona. It's some anthropology thing that he goes on and on and on about. I don't know much about it and I'm not really smart enough to understand it, probably, so Jack just tells me it's amazing and we move there.

We buy a house, which freaks out our parents and my siblings. It shows that we don't intend to move back home to Minnesota anytime soon. Well, that and the fact that I got a job as a high school English teacher with only one year of teaching experience, which was being a student teacher to a third grade class of demons.

I shouldn't have gotten the job. Actually, they called to tell me that I didn't get it. But Jack answered the phone because I panicked and couldn't.

I only got it because Jack introduced himself as my husband and the school was looking for a gay teacher so they could claim diversity. Really, it's a messed up reason to hire someone but I'll take it. At least I have a job.

As his own form of revenge, Jack decorates my classroom with overwhelming rainbows. Administration usually restricts the decor because of fire hazard, but Jack takes his athlete body and his anthropologist mind and stands up for his decorative choice. I better hope nothing catches fire, because I'd definitely get fired.

It makes for an interesting first day of school.

I go through the usual song and dance. You know, the layout of my classroom resources, the stuff we're going to cover during the year, how to contact me with questions. When that's over, I go to the "do you have any questions for or about me?" part of the day.

I get the same few questions in every class about the excess rainbows, my age, and Jack. I don't tell them that I was hired for diversity but I can see in the set of their lips that they've connected the dots. When they find out that Jack and I got married when we were twenty, a girl immediately asks if it was a shotgun wedding. The class erupts into laughter. She looks like she's alright with being the class clown but it sounded like a genuine question so I explain what a shotgun wedding is anyway.

It gets me thinking, though. I want kids. I've always wanted kids. They're horrible, disgusting creatures, but I want to fill our house with our own. They would be our horrible, disgusting creatures.

Jack hasn't really said anything about them, which really psychs me out. Maybe he hasn't because he hates kids. Maybe my complaints about the third graders turned him away from the idea.

He comes home and we eat the fancy dinner that I panic-cooked and I can tell that Jack knows we have something important to talk about but I don't think he knows what.

It's pretty quiet. My solution to the awkwardness is to stare seriously at his forehead, which makes it worse but I can't look away. If I make eye contact, I'll blurt it out and ambush him. He hates when I do that.

He lasts about half an hour before he says, "Tyler, what's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"You're being weird."

"I am not. You are."

Jack snorts. "Yeah, sure. But really, is something wrong? Was your first day bad?"

"No! It was actually really amazing. Just... they asked a few questions that got me thinking," I say, staring at my plate to avoid the concerned look I know he's giving me.

"About kids?"

I look up too abruptly and my neck does this awful crack and starts to hurt. Jack makes me lay down on the couch to rest it while we continue our conversation, which makes for a very weird point of view. You don't really expect to have a conversation about having children while your husband awkwardly leans over you.

Once I'm settled on the couch, Jack says, "So were you going to ask if I want kids?"

"I... I was. Was that bad? Should I not? It can wait. I don't want to rush you-"

Jask shakes his head and cuts me off. "You're not rushing anything. I've been waiting nine years to ask you that. Hold on, I'm uncomfortable." He climbs onto the couch and straddles me, grinning like an idiot. "We don't usually do it like this."

"Oh, shut up, this is supposed to be a serious conversation."

He smiles at me. "I know. We want the same thing, though, don't we? I mean, when we bought this place, we didn't really talk about the extra four bedrooms but when the lady mentioned it, you got this look on your face and then you smiled at your feet so I knew you were thinking about kids, you're terrible at hiding that sort of thing. So, since you've asked, I assume you looked it up? How long will it take for us to be qualified to- what's wrong?"

"I didn't look it up."

He recoils, looking confused. "Seriously?"

"My students asked and I kind of had tunnel vision the rest of the day."

"Wow, this is really important to you."

"Kind of."

Jack moves so he's stuck between me and the back of the couch with his head comfortably on my shoulder. He nestles right in and says, "Okay. We'll talk more about it tomorrow when you're not in unbearable pain."

"My neck doesn't even hurt anymore."

"I'm comfortable, stay right there."

We both fall asleep pretty quickly. I dream of a happy life with several children.