In the Weeds (Lovelight, #2)

by B.K. Borison

“It’s okay if it takes you some time to find it again. And it’s okay if you find it, just to lose a bit of it here and there. That’s the beauty of it, yeah? It comes and goes. Not every day is a happy one, and it shouldn’t be. It’s in the trying, I think.”

“You can’t make yourself be happy. But you can be open to it. You can trust yourself enough to feel it when you stumble on it.”

“I’ll stay. I think I’m finding some happy out here.” She looks at her hands with a grin, the dirt caked over her knuckles. Her eyes find mine and her smile tips wider. “Out here in the weeds.”

“I chose that bar because it was the least crowded place on the street.” Then I saw Evelyn and I didn’t want to go anywhere else. “Plus, everything gets quiet when I look at you.”

“It’s okay to want different things,” she says. “People change. You’re allowed to change. Doing less doesn’t make you less.”

“Did you find your happy today?” I ground my teeth and shook my head. A quick jerk. “No.” He had hummed once, head tilting to look out over the fields. “You want a hug?” And that had been its own sort of magic, hadn’t it? He hadn’t tried to fix it. Just . . . asked if he could hold me through it.

Maybe this is what happy is supposed to be. A person, a place. A single moment in time.

I didn’t realize falling in love could be so simple. Bacon in a take-out container and earplugs in the bottom of a handbag.

“If you think love means having to sacrifice bits of yourself to make someone else happy,” he explains. “If you’re afraid to ask after what you want. Maybe I did something wrong.”

“Sometimes love is greedy, kiddo.” My dad sets his mouth in a firm line. “Sometimes it’s a little bit selfish too. You think it’s never crossed my mind that your mom deserves something better than the life we carved out for ourselves here? It has. A million times. A million and one. But I’m holding on to her with both hands. I’m trusting her to make her own choices. To choose me.”