More Happy Than Not

by Adam Silvera

It’s just one more thing I have to pretend I’m okay with.

I trace the smiling scar, left to right and right to left, happy to have it as a reminder not to be such a dumbass again.

the life of someone she wanted to lose herself in, and not someone whose life she wanted to see thrown away.

“I kept blaming myself for not being a good enough son,

my mom swore he killed himself because he was unhappy, and it just got me thinking I might be happier dead, too . . .”

It’s like when you’re a kid, and you want to be an astronaut before accepting it might be impossible—even though everyone says nothing’s impossible, and they go so far to pinpoint moments from history to make you feel stupid. But you move on anyway. You know your capabilities and circumstances, so you start thinking that maybe being a boxer would be cool even though you’re too skinny. No problem, you can bulk up. But that all changes when you want to write for the newspaper and dream of having your own column, so you start doing that. And one day when you’re writing someone advice on how to be more organized, you think about piloting a ship into space again.

“Everyone plays a purpose, even fathers who lie to you or leave you behind. Time takes care of all that pain so if someone derails you, it’ll be okay eventually.

It’s not like my heart is in running or anything like that, but at least I learned that you can’t always choose who you’re going to be. Sometimes you’re fast enough to run track. Sometimes you’re not.”

I wish my existence were as simple as being set on fire and exploding in the sky.

Some friendships can never be as simple as sharing.

“Because I was tired of my many expectations not being met.”

“I think I’m kind of, sort of, definitely losing myself right now.”

just because you can afford something doesn’t mean you have to have it.

When your life sucks, your story sucks.”

think it’s okay for you to be confused by things right now, Thomas. We’re young and figuring shit out, but our lives don’t completely suck. Take it from the kid whose bedroom is the living room.”

Some dudes make their mind a prison. I like living outside of bars.

I will dare to be different. I will prove to everyone that the world won’t turn to ash or spin out of control or be swallowed alive by a black hole. But someone has to man up first to get this ball rolling.

Let me tell you something about me: I don’t care if you’re a gigantic virgin who’s part alien. You’re Stretch and nothing you say is going to change that.”

“I’ve been thinking about my happy ending even more than usual, probably because you’re trying to engineer yours right now. I don’t think I’ll ever be happy until I figure out who I am and it comes down to me not being a hundred percent happy with the life I have.”

From the shapes cast by the green paper lantern, you would never know that there were two boys sitting closely to one another trying to find themselves. You would only see shadows hugging,

the best liars are the ones who fool you by claiming they never lie at all.

I don’t want to second-guess if my friends are going to be okay with me being me, and more importantly, I don’t want to see what happens if they’re not.

wondering where the fuck my place is in this fucking universe that fucked me over.

I’m sure waiting for unfulfilled expectations will only make weeks feel like months, months feel like decades, and decades feel like my end of days. If there’s no happiness waiting for me there, then I lived a life without laughs and smiles and that’s not living at all.

When someone makes you happy, it’s pretty impossible to cage the excitement.

It’s weirdly possessive and obsessive to like someone; you want to learn all of his stories before anyone else and sometimes you want to be the only one who knows at all.

This is one of those times where you swear you have to be sleeping and living a nightmare because it’s so impossible that your life can only be a string of bad things until you’re completely abandoned.

The memories are still rattling around my head, twisting into me like a knife.

She once promised me that nothing bad would ever happen, and then I grew up and everything went wrong,

Empty promise. No one ever thinks they’ll get cancer. No one expects a gunman to open fire at the bank. “I’m more nervous that nothing will happen instead of something going wrong.”

“I don’t know. I’m sort of two people who want very different things, but even with all this confusion,

Memories: some can be sucker punching, others carry you forward; some stay with you forever, others you forget on your own. You can’t really know which ones you’ll survive if you don’t stay on the battlefield, bad times shooting at you like bullets. But if you’re lucky, you’ll have plenty of good times to shield you.

The boy with no direction taught me something unforgettable: happiness comes again if you let it.

Sometimes pain is so unmanageable that the idea of spending another day with it seems impossible. Other times pain acts as a compass to help you get through the messier tunnels of growing up. But the pain can only help you find happiness if you can remember it.

Cs he's a good friend Aaron je loved u as a fucking friend