Beach Read

by Emily Henry

when the world felt dark and scary, love could whisk you off to go dancing; laughter could take some of the pain away; beauty could punch holes in your fear.

I realized I was holding my breath, and when I forced myself to breathe,

the stuff of Regency-era erotica.

Some reason this maes me laugh

That was what I’d always loved about reading, what had driven me to write in the first place. That feeling that a new world was being spun like a spiderweb around you and you couldn’t move until the whole thing had revealed itself to you.

I was harboring a private heartbreak.

Again and again he told me I wasn’t myself. But he was wrong. I was the same me I’d always been. I’d just stopped trying to glow in the dark for him, or anyone else.

He fit so perfectly into the love story I’d imagined for myself that I mistook him for the love of my life.

“You know that feeling, when you’re watching someone sleep and you feel overwhelmed with joy that they exist?”

“Someone should invent a boredom EpiPen.”

That’s the key to marriage. You have to keep falling in love with every new version of each other, and it’s the best feeling in the whole world.”

Not giddy or overjoyed, but that low, steady level of happiness that, in the best periods of life, rides underneath everything else, a buffer between you and the world you are walking over.

Every single person on the planet had to take turns hurting. Sometimes all you could do was hold on to each other tight until the dark spat you back out.

No matter how much shit, there will always be wildflowers.

“If you want to destroy my life, I can destroy it worse.”

“Falling’s the part that takes your breath away. It’s the part when you can’t believe the person standing in front of you both exists and happened to wander into your path. It’s supposed to make you feel lucky to be alive, exactly when and where you are.”

Because I know no matter how long I get to love you, it will be worth whatever comes after.”

we stood there, learning to dance in the rain.

For January, I don’t care how the story ends as long as I spend it with you.