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.

I wish I could swallow the sound, that it would put down roots in my stomach and grow through me like a seed.

It’s that happy-sad feeling, that intense homesick ache.

The feeling of being so grateful to have something worth missing.

I am fully, terrifyingly here, where nothing else seems to matter.

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

If I’m good enough, I’ll be happy. I’ll be loved. I’ll be safe.

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. And I know, if nothing else, I’ll have that. I know I’ve chosen the right universe.