Funny Story

by Emily Henry

Miles is the other kind. The kind that’s disarming enough that you don’t feel nervous talking to him, or like you need to show your best angle, until—wham! Suddenly, he’s smiling at you with his messy hair and impish smirk, and you realize his hotness has been boiling around you so slowly you missed it.

“You know why they invited us, Miles. Because they’re both addicted to being universally loved. And they’re good at it. Good enough that they don’t realize you don’t get to be loved by people whose hearts you completely fucking destroy. They think they’re being the bigger people right now. But they don’t get to be the bigger people. For the next few years, they have to live with being the assholes.”

I don’t know how to talk along the surface of things, but I also don’t want to unearth the ugly stuff, over and over again, for people who are just passing through my life. It’s depleting. Like every time I dole out a kernel of my history to someone who’s not going to become a fixture in my life, a piece of me gets carried away, somewhere I can never get it back.

“He told you to trust him, and that’s what you did,”

“That’s what you’re supposed to be able to do with people you love. They just don’t always live up to it.”

I was never the one just having fun. I was the one anticipating consequences.

To him, he’s the brother who ran away. To her, he’s the one who stays, even when he shouldn’t.

I see him laugh but can’t hear it, and I feel robbed of the sound.