Happily Never After

by Lynn Painter

“I don’t know you well, but I know that Sophie Steinbeck should only ever be laughing.”

She genuinely didn’t believe in love.

“If you still want this when you’re sober, Soph, I am yours—night or day,” I said, meaning every word. Because as she stared up at me, I realized that I was very into her. Not into this, this chemistry-gone-wild thing that existed between us, but into her. I was falling for her.

Something about the shot was so us, as if we were an us, that I kind of wanted to print it off and put it in a frame.

“The truth is that who gives a flying fuck if you’ve been hurt in the past? Who cares if you’ve been cheated on? You have to get hurt to get to the good stuff, don’t you see?”