Happy Place

by Emily Henry

“I’ve worked so fucking hard on myself these last five months, Harriet, and I’m doing well. I’m with my family, and I’m doing work I’m proud of, and I’m on medicine.” “Medicine?” “You asked what changed my mind about the job earlier,” he says. “That’s what did it. Medicine. For depression.” My throat squeezes. Just one more huge thing I didn’t know about him. “From losing your dad?” He shakes his head. “I thought it was just that. But once I started taking it, I realized that had just made things worse. But it’s always been there. Making everything harder than it should be. It’s like . . .” He scratches his temple. “In high school, I had this friend on the soccer team. And one day, after a game, he collapsed. His chest hurt and he couldn’t get his shirt off, but he wanted to because he couldn’t breathe, and we all thought he was having a heart attack. Turned out it was asthma. “Spent like seventeen years operating on fifty-five percent lung capacity without realizing breathing just wasn’t supposed to be that hard.