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.

Now our relationship was the world’s least competitive game of phone tag.

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.

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.”

I always liked that thought, the way two people really did seem to grow into one. Or at least two overlapping parts, trees with tangled roots.

That is how life feels too often. Like you’re doing everything you can to survive only to be sabotaged by something beyond your control, maybe even some darker part of yourself.

“And to answer your question about the best-case scenario for a love story, yes. If I were hit by a meteor while in the car with you, I would still think I went out on a high note.”

My Happily Ever After was a strand of strung-together happy-for-nows, extending back not just to a year ago, but to thirty years before. Mine had already begun, and so this day was neither an ending nor a beginning. It was just another good day. A perfect day. A happy-for-now, so vast and deep that I knew—or rather believed—I didn’t have to worry about tomorrow.