Funny Story

by Emily Henry

Petra is also a stoner without a college degree, but I guess it’s different when you’re a perfect ten with a picturesque family and well-padded

bank account. Then you’re not a stoner; you’re a free spirit.

Life, I’d learned, is a revolving door. Most things that come into it only stay awhile.

Hell, I’m old enough to have a daughter named Renesmee on one of those U-5 soccer teams where the kids take turns kicking the ball the wrong way, then sitting down midfield to take off their shoes.

“They,” I say, “suck.” “She’s the love of my life,” he says. “The love of your life sucks,” I tell him.

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 can’t untell someone your secrets. You can’t unsay those delicate truths once you learn you can’t trust the person you handed them to.

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

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.

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.

Life isn’t a competition, and neither is love, but I’m still the loser.

And I stopped longing for him when I accepted this, because how could I miss someone who didn’t exist?