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.

Furniture wall to wall, all of it butting right up against each other, throw pillows utterly covering my bed, like I was some unhinged Stephen King villain who might handcuff you to the headboard and mother you to death.

Kids and their keepers

love this phrase

Still, a chorus of ridiculous little voices rises as I approach, cries of “Miss Daffy!” and other adorable mispronunciations of my name. In my heart, it feels like little kernels are bursting into fluffy blossoms of popcorn.

:,)

There are a lot of sweet families who’ve become regulars since I started here a year ago, but Huma and Arham are two of my favorites. He’s endlessly energetic and imaginative, and she rides that magical line of keeping firm rules without squashing his little weirdo spirit.

His furniture is all comfort, no sex appeal.

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.

I love talking to people I already know, but when I meet someone new, half the time my mind goes blank, and the other half of the time, I make a joke that absolutely no one realizes is a joke, or I ask something way too personal.”

That’s what he smells like. Sweet and a little spicy. A natural earthy smell folded into a sugary baked good.

this is such a good description where these moments of “omg he smells so good” in other books can fall so FLAT

Sadie used to say my look sat at the intersection of Personal Style as a Statement About Personality and Don’t Look at My Body, which is essentially accurate.

“Preserved federal land. There are better-known stretches of beach around here that get crowded, but the best spots are the ones you have to be told about to find.”

I’m not sure what parts of me are him and which parts are genuinely my own. And I want to know. I want to know myself, to test my edges and see where I stop and the rest of the world begins.

But just because that sounds boring to me doesn’t mean I think you’re boring.”

“Sometimes when I’m running Story Hour, I literally remember partway through that I’m getting paid to do something I love, and it feels like I’m dreaming. Like I might wake up and realize I’m late for my shift at the Dressbarn.

I’ve driven this way dozens of times, but on foot, I notice new things:

“It’s a library, Daphne. If you can’t be a human here, where can you?”

which I teach roughly five hundred kids how to sign in to an online game for the five hundredth time.

But as an adult, I find kids so much easier to understand. They say how they feel, and they show it too. There are fewer ulterior motives and unwritten rules. Silences aren’t unbearably awkward, and abrupt segues to different subjects are the norm. If you want to be friends with someone, you just ask, and if they don’t want to, they’ll probably just tell you.

“I had no idea you could do that,” he says. “Oh, yeah,” I say, starting back toward the front doors. They whoosh open and we enter the cool, musty quiet. “I’ve been reading since I was six. I’m getting pretty good.” “I mean the voices,” he clarifies. “You were such a convincing elderly magician mouse.” “If that impressed you, you should see me do the old woman who lives in a shoe,” I say. “I’ll clear my Saturdays,” he says. “I was kidding,” I say. He grins. “Not me.” I gesture toward the stacks. “Can I help you find something?” “I was hoping you could spell out every word of a love poem to me,” he deadpans.

reading is so fun

Fika,

That’s so Fika!

This is as close as I get to life on the edge: a milky tea and a near-white rug.

“A real what?” “A real laugh,” he says. “You’ve got your polite little chuckle, and then you’ve got that weird, deep chortle you do when you actually think I’m funny.”

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.

“You could be in the ghost-face mask from Scream and this would still happen,”

it would actually happen ten times over in that case

tipsy enough to play along but not drunk enough to be honest:

“I’ll get them,” he volunteers, and breaks away through the tightly packed crowd, casting one last glance over his shoulder, a hazy look that makes me feel like a Christmas present he’s one sleep from unwrapping.

Henry....i fear you may be the diva of all divas of the show-dont-tell category

I’m not so delicate. Lonely, hurt, angry, a little bit whiny? Sure.

Could feel that I was standing outside of things, waiting for the moment I would finally become a part of it. Here, tonight, though, I’m in the center of everything. This moment, though fleeting, belongs to me too.

“So you’ll come do all the hard parts, and I’ll pour the wine, while we watch the housewives throw drinks and scream ‘just own it’ at each other?”

It strikes me that Miles is right, that the key to being able to talk to anyone might just be curiosity.

It’s easy to be loved by the ones who’ve never seen you fuck up. The ones you’ve never had to apologize to, and who still think all your ‘quirks’ are charming. “It’s easy to be around people who don’t know you. But as soon as someone starts to figure you out—as soon as you can’t be perfect—it’s easier to move on. Find someone new to be the cool, fun, laid-back one with.”

“You make the people you care about feel like…” He pauses. “Like you want all of them. Not just the good parts. And that’s terrifying to someone who’s spent a lifetime avoiding those other pieces of themselves.”

He kisses the center of my palm. Heat gathers in my belly. It builds between us. Just standing here in the kitchen with him is in the top three most erotic moments of my life.

deep vulnerable convo turning her on is #relatable

It’s right in a general sense, and all wrong in the particulars.

“Honey.” She laughs. “I’m a cynic. And a cynic is a romantic who’s too scared to hope.”

“You, my girl, are whoever you decide to be. But I hope you always keep some piece of that girl who sat by the window, hoping for the best. Life’s short enough without us talking ourselves out of hope and trying to dodge every bad feeling. Sometimes you have to push through the discomfort, instead of running.”

I’d assumed Ashleigh never wanted to hang out at her place because she preferred to keep her social life separate from her life as a mom. Now I wonder if she was just playing coy about being absolutely loaded.

hahahahah

Her razor-edged brow lifts again. “So this is penance.” “This is me following through on what I said I’d do,” I say. “Late, obviously. And you’re not obligated to forgive me because of it. It’s not a trade. And I know an over-the-top gesture doesn’t make up for being generally shitty. I would love it if you forgave me, but if you don’t feel like you can, for whatever reason, I understand.”

that was a great apology

“What happened to When people tell you who they are, believe them?” I say, still waiting for a trapdoor to open in the floor. “All your actions told me,” she says, “is that you’re human. Which is good, because I don’t think I have it in me to be friends with someone who’s perfect. No more than I have it in me to be friends with someone who says one thing and does another ten times a month. I’m going to hurt you at some point too. I don’t want to, but it’ll happen. I have a kid! I have a whole life! Just like you. “But I don’t want to lose this friendship over one fight, just because I’m scared it could happen again. You’re becoming kind of important to me, Daphne.”

“Good.” Ashleigh tips her head toward the back doors. “Now, let’s watch something gory.” “Real Housewives?” I guess. “This,” she says, “must be what it’s like to be a proud mother.”

It is, by nature of being made out of paper by an amateur, utterly and wonderfully horrifying. If this thing came to life, it would do so with gruesome screams at finding itself sentient yet anatomically improbable. I love it so much.

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” I start. “I just haven’t said this before and I don’t think I will if I wait too long trying to figure out a better way of saying it.”

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

“I won’t hurt you, Daphne.” “You don’t know that,” I whisper. “I know how hard I’ll try,” he says. “Just stay. I love you. I want you. Stay.”

But I do feel like the luckiest person in the world, to be who you want. Because I want you too. I love you too. I love you in a way that feels brand-new. You make every single thing that went wrong feel like it was just a step in the right direction, and it—it makes me excited. For life to keep surprising me.

Things were allowed to be complicated. They were allowed to be messy. We were allowed to disagree and argue and even hurt each other, on occasion, and it didn’t mean it was time to let the revolving door of life carry us away from each other. Sometimes things are hard. They just are.

“Funny story…” he says, but he doesn’t go on, just watches me and waits. He knows how much I love to tell it.