Funny Story

by Emily Henry

It was the only time I’d seen her cry. She was my best friend and favorite person in the world, but she wasn’t a soft woman. I’d always thought of her as completely invulnerable.

She kissed me on the head, said, “Sometimes I wish I held on to a little bit more.” “It’s just stuff,” I reminded her, her own constant refrain. Life, I’d learned, is a revolving door. Most things that come into it only stay awhile.

My heart keens at the thought of my own mother. How, even with the long hours she pulled at work, she made time to hand-sew Halloween costumes and chaperone field trips and stumble her way through helping me with algebra. She worked so hard to give me the best life she could, and I don’t take any of it for granted.

“Things go smoother if you don’t let people get a rise out of you,” he says. “If you give them control over how you feel, they’ll always use it.”

He smiles, but his jaw is tight, and the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “It’s not cynical. If you don’t give other people responsibility for your feelings, you can have a decent relationship with most of them.”

If a person lets you down, it’s time to reconsider what you’re asking of them.

It is what it is, and I can’t change it. But so much of life’s good. What’s the point of dwelling on the shit that’s not?”

standing barefoot on the floor vent, letting the heat billow through my pajamas as I watched the window and waited.

“Okay. But we’re more than just what happened in April. Let’s focus on the other stuff.”

“How did it start?” he asks. “The library thing.” I cast my mind back, to before grad school, before undergrad even, all the way to the first moment I remember loving a story. Feeling like I was living it. Being, even as a child, bowled over by how something imaginary could become real, could wring every emotion from me or make me homesick for places I’d never been.

“Or maybe,” he says, eyes crinkled against the sun, “everything worth doing comes with some risk.”

I’m trying not to be unreasonably grumpy, but this is fuck-everything early, even for me,

You can’t force a person to show up, but you can learn a lesson when they don’t. Trust people’s actions, not their words. Don’t love anyone who isn’t ready to love you back. Let go of the people who don’t hold on to you. Don’t wait on anyone who’s in no rush to get to you.

“I know it’s a cliché,” he says after a minute, “but being on the water always does feel like what I imagine church is for some people.”

“I get that,” I say. “Out here, you’re small and there’s no one else around, but you’re not lonely. It’s like you’re connected to everyone and everything.”

“Exactly,” he says. “And you remember to marvel. It’s so easy to forget how inc...

“A little,” I admit. “But that’s what I get for trying to be the cool, laid-back girl who doesn’t need to slather every inch of her body in sunblock every half hour.” We’ve stopped moving, just barely out of reach of BARn’s twinkling lights, Julia and Ashleigh lost somewhere ahead in the crowd. “She might be cool and laid-back right now,” he says, “but she’ll feel less fancy-free when she’s taking monthly trips to a dermatologist.”

Feelings are like weather. They just happen, and then they pass.”

“She can hold her own,” he says. “So can I,” I argue. He draws back to look into my face. “I know,” he says. “I just don’t want you to have to.”

I think you’re the first person who’s really seen me. Past what I want people to see.

“Of course,” she says. “I’m leaving them for the night crowd to finish off. Otherwise Mulder will eat all of them and turn into the Mask by bedtime.”

It’s me and Mom, on the couch, eating microwaved corn dogs while Dial M for Murder plays on TV.

All those moments throughout the days, weeks, months that don’t get marked on calendars with hand-drawn stars or little stickers. Those are the moments that make a life. Not grand gestures, but mundane details that, over time, accumulate until you have a home, instead of a house.

“So,” she says, keeping her voice low, “don’t freak out.” “Three magical words,” I say.

“But if I’ve learned anything from parenting, it’s that it matters way more that you’re present than that you’re perfect.

The things you wait months for blink past, like the flash of a strobe,

The same universe that dispassionately takes things away can bring you things you weren’t imaginative enough to dream up.

The door swings open. He’s standing there shirtless, shaving cream covering the lower half of his face, razor in hand. “I thought I should shave,” he says, by way of explanation. “Since your mom’s coming.” I fight a smile. “You once told me that women of a certain age love the scruffy thing.” “Oh, they do.” He leans against the sink. “I can’t have your mom falling in love with me.”

I’m working on being excited instead of nervous about the unknown. So many of the most beautiful things in life are unexpected.