Happy Place

by Emily Henry

This is how I used to think of love. As something so delicate it couldn’t be caught without being snuffed out. Now I know better. I know the flame may gutter and flare with the wind, but it will always be there.

“Then why are you wasting your time doing it?” Dad says. “Because it makes me happy,” I say. “And I don’t consider anything that does that a waste of time.”

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.