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Author's Chapter Notes:
It physically pains me to mark “complete” on this story because I have loved writing it so much. But the time has come. The last installment of English Jim. :’)
The two of them had spent the first weeks of summer at a beach house in Emerald Isle, North Carolina. They had decided to drive there, enjoying each other’s company and filling the time with stories of teaching and childhood and their dreams of the future. One night as they stood with their feet in the sand, overlooking the moon reflecting in the ocean waves, they decided they’d rather not wait much longer to begin that future.

So, the ceremony happened two months later—small and intimate. They filled the main room of the cabin in the Poconos with white roses, family, and promises to cherish and challenge one another until the very end. He held her close as they danced on the makeshift dance floor in the backyard, and filled her ears with promises he fully intended to keep for the rest of his days.

They spent that first night as husband and wife in a small bed and breakfast near Lake Valhalla. Though they already knew every inch of each other, he would never forget how being her husband made the stars shine brighter and every sensation sharper. A complete feeling of serenity washed over him as they lay together, now intertwined both physically and otherwise.

They spent a few days in Washington D.C. for their honeymoon, visiting the bench in front of the Washington Memorial each night. He would pull her close and recall how he was sure he couldn’t possibly love her any more than he did the last time they sat there and first expressed his feelings for her. Now he knew there was no ceiling when it came to his capacity to love her.

They returned to school two weeks later, where everything was mostly the same. Same classrooms, same desks. But even so, nothing was the same. Jim looked through the hallway the morning of their first day of school and saw his wife, his wife, sketching at her desk and emotion began welling up in his throat. He loved her.

The bell rang and his class shuffled into their seats. After getting them started on a writing prompt, he sat at his desk, staring at the couch next to his desk where they had sat almost exactly a year ago, before they were them. He smiled to himself, remembering their last year, remembering Raphael, and homecoming. Chaperoning trips and making fireworks, both literal and figurative. They had grown into each other, blurring the lines of where he ended and she began.

He twisted the gold band on his finger and chuckled softly to himself, realizing the premonition he had at the beginning of last fall had been correct. He had felt like it would be his best year yet and he had definitely been right about that. But it was the funny, kind, and painfully beautiful art teacher across the hall who had made it that way.

From across the hall he heard her voice and looked up.

“Good morning class, I’m your art teacher, Mrs. Halpert.”

He watched as she bit her bottom lip and smiled as the words came out of her mouth. He had read countless books by countless authors, but those nine words, in that order, made up the most beautiful sentence he had ever heard.
Chapter End Notes:
I have been absolutely blown away by the kind words and response to this little story of mine. It started as just a little idea and grew into one of my favorite things I’ve written. English Jim will always have a special place in my heart. Thank you to everyone who let me bounce ideas off of them and gave me the encouragement I needed to keep writing it. I love you guys!


WanderingWatchtower is the author of 23 other stories.
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