Happy Place

by Emily Henry

My best friends taught me a new kind of quiet, the peaceful stillness of knowing one another so well you don’t need to fill the space. And a new kind of loud: noise as a celebration, as the overflow of joy at being alive, here, now.

happy place,

the irresistible warmth that comes only from being in the exact right place with the exact right people.

Let’s enjoy this for a second before I ruin everything.

Ruh roh

The very last person I expected to see. The very last person I want to see. Wyn Connor. My fiancé.

RUH ROHHHHH

He’s the one who derailed our life together in a four-minute phone call.

Ooooo tea tell meemore

Briefly I fantasize about pitching myself out the window, over the cliffs, and into the ocean, swimming until I reach Europe. I’d happily take Nova Scotia.

I knew the only thing more painful than being without him would be being together knowing I no longer truly had him.

how entangled we still feel on a quantum level. Like my body will never stop trying to find its way back to his.

“An interior designer finds a hand behind a wall,” she says. “Yes, but it’s cozy.” I take the book back. “How is that cozy,” she asks. “It’s a cozy mystery,” I say. “It’s hard to explain.”

popovers.”

I could also uae a popover rigjt about now

He’s become my best friend the way the others did: bit by bit, sand passing through an hourglass so slowly, it’s impossible to pin down the moment it happens. When suddenly more of my heart belongs to him than doesn’t, and I know I’ll never get a single grain back.

Marilyn Monroe singing ‘Happy birthday, Mr. President’?”

Lmfao

to admit that the rest of my life, everything I’ve worked for, has started to feel like set dressing. Like loving him is the only essential, and everything else is garnish.

You look like you ate a trash bag full of catnip.”

“And these colors have tastes.”

Duardo in venice beach

“Is there one that looks like us?” he asks. 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.

“Everything keeps spinning,” he says in a low, hoarse voice. “But my mind’s always got one hand on you.”

confabulations,

“How many universes do you think we’re together in?” “Higher than either of us can count.” His mouth quirks. “And you can count very high.” “It’s true,”

“No,” he says quietly. “In every universe, it’s you for me. Even if it’s not me for you.”

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.

“How is it possible to love someone so much and have it all just go away?”

Because it won’t matter. Because he can promise me anything, but in the end, feelings could come and go, and we’ll be powerless to stop the change.

Yikes

I know you’re scared, but you can’t keep putting this off. The longer you wait, the worse it will be. You have to tell her, Wynnie—

WHAT IS THIS ABOUT

“Love means constantly saying you’re sorry, and then doing better.”

I’ve often thought that the world saves its very best weather for days when you feel like everything’s gone wrong,

Everything is changing. It has to. You can’t stop time. All you can do is point yourself in a direction and hope the wind will let you get there.

Before I knew Wyn, I could have been okay without him. Now I’ll always feel the place he isn’t.

“Because there’s nowhere I wouldn’t go for you.

I’d rather have you five days a year than anyone else all the time.

Dad comes around first. He starts sending me articles about the mental benefits of making pottery, and texts about a new TV competition between ceramists.

Pottery showdown !!!

I understood, then, the immense honor it is to hurt like she does. To have loved someone so much that the taste of maple syrup can make you cry and laugh at the same time.