Happy After All

by Maisey Yates

The Meet-Cute—an amusing or charming first encounter between two main characters that typically results in a romantic entanglement.

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.

I’m immobilized by the impact of him. I don’t know where to look. I don’t know how to breathe. I don’t know how to talk to him.

His forearms muscular, but not from work in a gym—oh no, he looked like a man who got his muscles from working the land or fighting a bear or . . .

Then he makes eye contact with me. 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.

I can see he wants to make conversation with me as much as he’d like to turn around, wander into the desert, and die of heatstroke.

People are too complicated to be sympathetic, generally speaking.

Sometimes I just can’t bear to be something he has to try quite so hard for.

I assume he’s the kind of attractive that gets a lot of reactions all the time,

The heat from his skin, the roughness of it. It’s like static electricity against my fingertips. I thought that part of me was dead, I really did, until right this minute.

sometimes I just say things when I’m nervous. He makes me nervous.

Grumpy/Sunshine—a romance trope where one character exhibits a sunny, optimistic personality and the other has a more taciturn demeanor, resulting in friction between the two.

I’m supposed to be engaged in customer service, which means behaving in a manner that suggests the customer is always right, even when the customer is being silly.

We married so young, we were flexible. Like saplings. 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.”

Age hasn’t shrunk her or made her demure. I want to claim that energy for myself without waiting sixty years to do it.

I think he’s attractive, but I’m never going to do anything about it, mainly because he has caution tape all around him, but also I’m not supposed to be thinking about men right now.

I’m mousy brown, after all. While I’m okay with this, I also accept that I don’t stand out.

“We’re past the age of caring what anyone thinks,” Gladys says. “I want that,” I say. “I want to bottle that and make it mine.” “Sorry, dear,” says Gladys. “I think it’s a thing that takes time, gray hair, wrinkles, heartbreaks, and all kinds of moments when you cared too much. Then one day you realize . . . it never got you anywhere you wanted to go. The people who only want you when you bend and twist to suit them don’t stay anyway, and the ones who want you as you are settle in, and so do you.”

I never wanted to be with someone like me. I spend too much time thinking, too much time observing things around me rather than just living the things that are happening.

Landscaping is a losing battle in the desert, and water is too precious to waste. Rocks, fake grass, and plastic flamingos are a great zero-moisture alternative.

“This is not a rom-com,” I say to her. “What’s that supposed to mean?” “You can’t . . . scheme your way into an entanglement.” She laughs and laughs. “Oh, darlin’, when an entanglement is meant to be, you can’t fight your way out of it either.”

“I like to read books with penises,” Alice says, waving a hand, not bothering to look up. “Because I don’t have them in my real life, and I don’t want them. They’re best in fiction.”

the thing about Albert is he’s opinionated. When you’re opinionated back, he just deals with it. It’s why I like him. He’s not a hypocrite. He’s free with his feelings, so if you want to, you can be free with yours right back.

I’m in a slapstick comedy, and I don’t even like slapstick. What’s next? Am I a breath away from a pratfall? Is there a paint bucket I’m unaware of that I might step in? Is a pack of armadillos that don’t even live here going to come through my office in a stampede? The possibilities are endless, and all bad.

This is the most he’s ever spoken to me, and he’s irritating me.

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.

“Falling in love when everything is terrible is as brave an act as blowing shit up. Except it’s something regular, everyday people can choose to do. A radical act of real-life bravery.”

my experience is that when life gives you shit, there’s really nothing much to continue to hope for.”

He’s close in a way no one ever is. In a way I never let them be.

All the air leaves my body, and I am left with the crushing sense that I was just the victim of my own overactive imagination.

Matchmaker, Matchmaker—when the community members in a romance band together to try to create a love match between the protagonists by meddling in their lives.

It’s 123 degrees. The kind of record-breaking heat where dry won’t save you. Where the idea of your AC going out is terrifying because it could actually be fatal.

“I feel like I have to be everything. I don’t ever want Emma to struggle, you know? Just because I chose to be an idiot who had unprotected sex with a loser, that’s not her fault. It’s not her fault her dad sucks.”

In my opinion, friends to lovers is much more realistic than enemies to lovers. Mostly, if a man is mean to you, odds are he’s going to keep being mean to you.

I can’t claim that my body is an instrument of seduction.

“Why would you think a person would get less dangerous with time? It seems to me that their life experience and the willingness of others to underestimate them only makes them more dangerous.”

I ache right then. To feel pretty. To feel desired.

Save the Cat—when a main character does something early in the narrative to demonstrate that they are, in fact, a hero in the story.

But tomorrow I’m going to get up, and I’m going to be the hero in my own life. The one I need. That is the perk to being single. I’m not going to wait for somebody to rescue me.

Enemies to Lovers—a popular romance cliché where two characters destined to become lovers start out disliking one another.

I’m closer and closer every day to being fully restored. But he’s too broken for me to manage.

sometimes you’re enemies with someone for your own good.

Reunion Romance—a romance plot that centers on past lovers reuniting.

Rebuilding is not a quick process.

The best part of Christmas gatherings, in my opinion, is the endless variety of sweets that can be taken away from events on paper plates, so the holiday traditions mix and mingle and you get to try different recipes.

You (Again)—when two characters continually cross paths—seemingly at random—but it’s an indication that their connection is “fated” or part of a bigger plan.

That’s why he excites me. I can’t have him. I’m not being martyrish, I’m really not. He’s safe like this. A safe space to have pleasant, warm feelings without ever having to worry about the consequences of those feelings, because there are none and won’t be.

Christmas is supposed to be about miracles and stars aligning.

“What’s wrong with birthday week? Start treating yourself early.”

I’m not in a romance novel. I know that. I know that sometimes a guy is not your Mr. Darcy—he’s just being mean.