Happy Place

by Emily Henry

I might talk too much or not enough. I might keep them up with my middle-of-the-night trips to the bathroom, or put their dishes away in the wrong place, or get in their way in any of the millions of highly specific ways you can only learn to avoid with time.

He’s the only person who knows how much it bothers me that I barely know Eloise, that despite having a sister, I always felt acutely alone in our childhood home. Between our six-year age gap and her constant disagreements with our parents, we didn’t have much time to bond.

“Who gets their makeup done early in the morning?” Mom asks, like it’s an entirely innocent question and not a thinly veiled expression of two decades’ worth of disappointment.

Not miserable. Just like it’s not enough. Like he and Mom both know there are other universes where they’re more, bigger, happier.

“If we’re making each other unhappy,” I say as evenly as I can, “we can’t keep going. I couldn’t stand living every day knowing you resent me.”

Afraid people will take me too seriously, then be disappointed when they find out how mediocre I am at it.