Happy Place

by Emily Henry

They all do, I think. You are in all of my happiest places. You are where my mind goes when it needs to be soothed.

he says quietly. “In every universe, it’s you for me. Even if it’s not me for you.”

It doesn’t matter how busy life’s been, how long the five of us have gone without seeing one another: meeting at the cottage is like pulling on a favorite sweatshirt, worn to perfection. Time doesn’t move the same way when we’re there. Things change, but we stretch and grow and make room for one another. Our love is a place we can always come back to, and it will be waiting, the same as it ever was.

“What if I’m bad at it?” I ask. “Being a parent.” He sweeps my hair back from my neck. “You won’t be.” “You don’t know that,” I say. “I do,” he says. “How?” I say. “Because you’re good at loving,” he says. “And that’s all you have to do.”

“A happy potter’s better for this world than a miserable surgeon.”

Your job doesn’t have to be your identity. It can just be a place you go, that doesn’t define you or make you miserable. You deserve to be happy, Harriet.” He brushes a strand of hair away from the curve of my jaw. “Everything’s better when you’re happy.”

Like even when something beautiful breaks, the making of it still matters.

And even that pain is a kind of pleasure, to feel so loved, to love so deeply.

Before I knew Wyn, I could have been okay without him. Now I’ll always feel the place he isn’t. Want is a kind of thief. It’s a door in your heart, and once you know it’s there, you’ll spend your life longing for whatever’s behind it.