You and Me on Vacation

by Emily Henry

I catch the bolded words CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE. He’s fully reading a book at a bar.

Where can I find him? <3

“I thought the whole thing about millennials was that we don’t get what we want. The houses, the jobs, the financial freedom. We just go to school forever, then bartend ’til we die.”

He is tall, quiet, and eager to see the library. I’m short, loud, and hoping someone comes by and invites us to a real party.

“You were never a Jessica,” he says confidently. I arch an eyebrow. “How do you know?” “Because.” His eyes hold fast to the sun-bleached road. “You’ve always been Poppy.”

It’s the very fact that it’s finite that makes traveling special. You could move to any one of those destinations you loved in small doses, and it wouldn’t be the spellbinding, life-altering seven days you spent there as a guest, letting a place into your heart fully, letting it change you.

“I’m not sure that’s what he wants.” She shrugs. “Maybe not,” she says. “But most of us are too scared to even ask what we want, in case we can’t have it.

“You’re not a vacation, and you’re not the answer to my career crisis, but when I’m in a crisis or I’m sick or I’m sad, you’re the only thing I want. And when I’m happy, you make me so much happier. I still have a lot to figure out, but the one thing I know is, wherever you are, that’s where I belong. I’ll never belong anywhere like I belong with you. No matter what I’m feeling, I want you next to me. You’re home to me, Alex. And I think I’m that for you too.”

He could be starving in a desert, and if the wrong person held out a glass of water to him, he’d nod politely and say no, thanks.