Happy After All

by Maisey Yates

It’s a truth universally acknowledged—at least, in a romance novel—that the moment the main character has her life in order, the exact person she doesn’t want to meet will come along and knock all that careful order into disarray.

That’s when I remember I’ve sworn off men until I pick up every last piece of my shattered self and glue her back together.

People are too complicated to be sympathetic, generally speaking. I’m not naive enough to believe my life would have been perfect if he’d stayed with my mother. It would have been weird and bitter in a different way, that’s all. Like I said, he tries. Sometimes I just can’t bear to be something he has to try quite so hard for.

Two young trees who bent around each other as they grew. Well, I’m a mighty oak now, Amelia. And I can’t bend. Not again. Not for anyone else.”

I chose romance because I needed to believe in happiness still. Even when my whole life fell apart, I needed to believe in it. Not just in happiness, but that happily ever after was possible, even if things had gone horribly, terribly wrong.

“I can’t . . . I’m not a fling sort of person,” I say. “I tried it once when I was in college. It didn’t work. I ended up crying over a guy who didn’t give me his number or an orgasm.

Sometimes I wonder if I write romance because I’m trying to go over the things that went wrong in my own. Though that’s pretty well-worn ground at this point. I know for a fact I’m trying to reassure myself that happy endings can still exist.

Don’t postpone joy. I was in pain, and I had every reason to wait until I healed to start enjoying sunsets and pie and new friends. I took it as a sign from the universe. To try to let the joy exist alongside grief.

“Because,” he says, “if I were in the position . . . I would treat you better.”

I can see that it isn’t a lack of interest but an extreme amount of restraint that keeps him planted to the spot he’s in.

“That’s the problem,” he says. “If I treated you nicely, it would only lead to one place.”

“It would lead straight to your bedroom.”

The man looks like he’s in pain for wanting me. I can’t remember the last time that happened. I’m not sure it ever has.

he makes me feel small and fragile in a way that makes me feel special, not reduced, not like less. I’m somehow infinitely more. Free to melt against him, free to feel, more than I ever have been.

UGHHHHH NEEEEDDDDDDD

He moves to me, cradling my face again as he leans down for a kiss. He’s so much taller than me. He makes me feel so small and delicate.

MANIFESTING THIS BRB

This is like a love scene I would write. I want to capture every detail, every moment. The way my skin looks against his. The way I’m soft, the way he’s hard. The way I’m smooth, the way he’s rough.

Then he moves away, just for a moment, and is undoing his belt buckle, taking off his jeans and underwear faster than I’ve ever seen any man move. He is . . . I give thanks. He is the most beautiful naked man I have ever seen. Thick and long. Undoubtedly the most incredible specimen I’ve ever beheld.

she’s just like me for real

I know a moment of trepidation because it has been a long time, but the little wicked part of myself that has risen up aggressively since he first kissed me in the courtyard is thrilled. She wants to feel it. She maybe even wants to hurt. So that she knows. That she’s claimed. That it’s real.

He fucks me into the mattress like I’m unbreakable and precious, and I want to be both. For him. For me.

I rejoice in the reality that I made this mountain of a man shake.

she was really the first person who didn’t try to change me. That’s a pretty rare thing.”

I can’t think if I’ve ever been in a relationship where I didn’t feel like I had to change. Maybe that isn’t fair. Because I changed myself pretty substantially when I moved to LA. Maybe that’s something I do. I left Bakersfield and I wanted to start over. I wanted to be a more interesting character.

I go back over all the things I just said to Nathan, and I realize it’s true. I find it much easier to recast myself in a different role when I go somewhere new. I’m afraid of myself. Or at least parts of me. And I would n...

I’m just Amelia. Amelia Taylor, the same as I’ve always been. Never quite being enough.

I have now read a couple and listened to Amelia give some fascinating commentary on the topic. I have to say, both of the books I’ve read have felt pretty real. It shows people dealing with issues and living. That’s what we all have to do, deal with shit and keep going. If you want to kill everybody off and let them be dead, then I would suggest that you actually want a more digestible reality.”

We aren’t teenagers experiencing the first taste of passion. It’s all the more powerful for it. Because we have lived life, experienced consequences. Heartbreak. And we’re still here. And this is as powerful as it ever was. It is inevitable.

When I wake up, I know Nathan is going to be in bed with me. I don’t have to imagine that I’m in a TV show, or in a book, because right now my reality is better than any story anyone could ever make up. Drifting off to sleep with that feeling is the best one I can remember.

Time moves different in romance novels—we talked about that earlier. Time moves differently, but the feelings are real, so maybe this is real enough.

“You should never be anything less than the love of someone’s life, Amelia. So the question will simply be whether he’s smart enough to snag you or not.”

“What if I can’t have everything?” “You’ll survive. You’ll keep on living. You’ll smile again. You’ll dream again. You get to be my age, and you realize that you had everything that was meant for you. So you might as well want it all, then see what comes.”