If It Makes You Happy

by Julie Olivia

Now grab a blanket, light up a cozy candle, and revisit the autumn of 1997!

I’m bubbling with anger, and here’s my explosion. My world is out of control. Everything is out of my control.

Copper Run smells like crunching leaves and breezes that bite. There’s a hint of something warm in the air too—baked

baked bread of some kind. Maybe a pie or biscuits in the oven. Mazzy Star hums from my neighbor’s open window.

A quilt-covered queen bed sits against the wall. A small TV with a built-in VHS player is on the dresser in the corner. On a side table is a cordless phone and a small stack of Chicken Soup for the Soul books, topped with a tiny Precious Moments porcelain figurine—one of many Mom collected.

So, I’m doing what I always do—whatever needs to be done.

I’ve worked very hard to be in a position where people do what I tell them.

That’s the secret thing about raising a kid—if it doesn’t look like a big deal to you, it’s not a big deal to them.

He’s so different from me. If I’m autumn, he’s spring. He’s all smiles and glowing warmth. His blue eyes are so deep, like the first beautiful clear sky of the season. He likes to rest them on my breeze-blown hair, drift them down to my painted lips or to the cardigan falling off my shoulder.

“Men don’t have to worry about getting older. You get more…refined with age. And we women get cast as witches and hags.”

“Men don’t want women like me.” “Like what?” Unfun, too serious, workaholics. “I don’t know,” I mumble. He gives a devilish, absolutely wicked smile. “I think men secretly want women just like you,” he growls, leaning even closer. “And the men who don’t are cowards.”

The world tilts. It suddenly feels like I’m falling through the ground, straight to the center of the earth. God, she’s breathtaking.

And that—that right there—is the exact moment I know I need to kiss him. Because, despite Cliff taking a risk, he immediately backtracks when he thinks I’m uncomfortable. Because he’s that kind of friend. He’s that kind of man.

It’s a scrapbook of girlhood phases. The walls are painted baby pink. Stuffed animals are scattered across the floor and on the unmade bed. The ceiling is coated in glow-in-the-dark stars, along with a yellow

smiley face poster and another one of Leonardo DiCaprio from Romeo + Juliet. Scribbled notes on scrap pieces of paper layer the walls with torn-out pages from album booklets between them. Bookcases, filled with Goosebumps and The Baby-Sitters Club, line either side of the doorframe.

I don’t want to go on more dates. I want Michelle. Not as a friend. Not as a fling. I want her.

“I want you to be happy and—” His next words almost come out in a whisper. “Have you ever thought I might be happy with you?”

I tense, taking in a shaky breath. “You can’t mean that.” “I almost wish I didn’t.” “But you said—” “I say so many things that I don’t know what comes out of my mouth half the time,” he says. “But you do…you make me happy. So, there. I’m stuck in my own damn head with thoughts of you that I can’t get rid of. So, what do I do? Huh? What do I do?”

And it hits me. I love this woman.

I don’t know when it happened. It slipped over me so softly, like the changing of seasons. The seeping scent of baked bread first thing in the morning. A wistful sigh on a perfect fall day.

The girls laugh in the living room. The Rugrats theme plays from the TV.

Cliff watches the busy living room scene and pulls me closer into his arms. I wish I could pause this moment. Maybe keep it on my shelf like a beautiful snow globe I can shake whenever I like. But that isn’t how life works.

It’s officially 1998—a new year—and I plan to spend every day of it as happy as possible in the arms of a person who loves me. I think we both deserve that.