Happy Place

by Emily Henry

The most important friendships in my life all came down to a decision made by strangers, chance.

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.

What can you feel? Sunlight, everywhere. Not just on my bare shoulders or the crown of my head but inside me too, the irresistible warmth that comes only from being in the exact right place with the exact right people.

The point is, some people live the bulk of their lives in their minds (me), and some are highly physical beings (Wyn).

“Overthinking is the thing I’m best at, though,”

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. He’s a golden boy. I’m a girl whose life has been drawn in shades of gray. I try not to love him. I really try.

“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.

“You said it felt like a Ferris wheel,” I say. “Like all your thoughts were constantly circling, and you’d reach out for one, but it was hard to stay on it for too long because they kept spinning.” The lines of his face soften. His fingers curl, the backs of his nails pressing into my skin. “Except with you. You’re like gravity.”

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

I’ve never known what to do with pain, Wyn. All I’ve ever done is hide from it.”

I spent my whole life chasing things and people who could make me feel like I mattered.”

“Everyone fights with the people they love,

“It’s okay to walk away,” he says. “Everyone says Don’t go to bed angry, but sometimes a person needs time to think. And if you need that, it’s okay,

“There doesn’t need to be a winner and a loser. You just have to care how the other person feels. You have to care more about them than you do about being right.”

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

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.

“And it feels like taking a shot of tequila every time I hear it. Like I could get drunk on the sound of you. Or hungover when I go too long without you.

“Maybe not,” I manage, “but it’s why they’re proud of me. It’s the thing about me that makes them happiest.”

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

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.

“I love you,” he says into my mouth, and I wish I could swallow it, like that would let me keep that sound forever, this moment forever. My nose burns. My voice crackles. “Don’t say that.” “Why not?” he whispers. “Because,” I say, “those words don’t belong to me anymore.” “Of course they do,” he says. “They belonged to you before I ever saw you. They belong to you in every universe we’re in, Harriet.”

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.

“Because there’s nowhere I wouldn’t go for you. And if you get out to Montana and realize there’s somewhere else you need to be, there’s nothing I’m not willing to do to make it work. I’d rather have you five days a year than anyone else all the time. I’d rather argue with you than not talk, and whether we’re together or we’re not, I’m yours, so let’s be together, Harriet. As much as we can. As long as we can. As soon as we can. Everything else, we’ll figure out later.”

Wyn,” I whisper shakily. His fingers twitch, tightening through my curls. “Are you saying I can come home?” “I’m saying,” he murmurs softly, “it’s not home unless you’re there.”

But more often than any of those places, when I need to feel safe and happy, I go home.

He will be waiting on the other side, still covered in sawdust and smelling like pine. Before I even see him, my heart starts singing its favorite song. You, you, you.