Beach Read

by Emily Henry

Mom’s first diagnosis taught me that love was an escape rope, but it was her second diagnosis that taught me love could be a life vest when you were drowning.

Hate, I found out on the ride home, was a less embarrassing way to say fear.

I’d thought missing my dad would be the hardest thing I’d ever do. But the worst thing, the hardest thing, had turned out to be being angry with someone you couldn’t fight it out with.

“It’s not about what’s happened. It’s about how you cope with things, who you are. You’ve always been this fierce fucking light, and even when you’re at your worst, when you feel angry and broken, you still know how to be a person. How to tell people you—you love them.”

Sometimes, January, being a parent feels like being a kid who someone has mistakenly handed another kid. “Good luck!” this unwise stranger cries before turning his back on you forever.

“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.”

He fell silent, and the whine of the wind stretched out like an ellipsis begging to add more.