Happy Place

by Emily Henry

He knots his hands with mine, telling me he loves me in every way he can. Only once I’m half asleep, drifting off with my temple pressed to his chest, do I hear him whisper it one last time: “I love you.” Through the gauzy layers of sleep, I hear myself murmur, “You.”

But I can’t stand for our last moment together to be a goodbye. I want to remember him like this, while he’s still mine and I’m his.

but I can’t stand long goodbyes. Every second gets harder.

Wyn might be happier and healthier than he was six months ago, and I might be a little more honest about my feelings, but I know him, every inch. I’ve memorized the rhythm of his breathing when he sleeps and the smell of his skin when he’s been out in the sun, and I know when he’s afraid.

Maybe I didn’t see it right away because I’m so unused to trusting myself. I’ve spent too long following everyone else’s lead, placing everyone else’s judgment above my own. But now I see it. He’s afraid.

He still doesn’t trust that I can love him forever. Some part of him is waiting for me to choose something else. Believes that if I were given every option, he wouldn’t be my pick. He might think...

All my life, I’ve let other voices creep in, and they’ve drowned out my own.

Now my mind is strangely quiet. For the first time in so long, I hear myself clearly. One word. All it takes to answer the only question that can’t wait. You.

“You didn’t say goodbye,” he says. The best I can do in that moment is “I couldn’t.” His brows pinch. The moment holds. “Is that all?” I ask. “What?” “Did you drive all the way here to say goodbye?” I say.

“You said I need to figure out what I want,” I say. “That I can’t keep doing what other people think is right for me.”

“Do you get to tell me what will or won’t make me happy?”

“And everything could implode again,” I say. “Worse than last time. So badly we couldn’t find our way back to each other.”

I don’t want to go to sleep without being able to put my feet on your calves to warm them up, and I don’t want to say goodbye to your rodeo shirt, and I don’t want to let you leave here without understanding that I trust myself on this.

You don’t get to think you’re right.” His eyes widen. “Right about what?” “About all of it!” I cry. “That I don’t want you! That you can’t make me happy! That if I go back to California right now it has anything to do with what I want. That you’re the lucky one in this relationship when it’s obviously always been me. That Grocery Gladiators is a real game, and that it makes any sense to put glasses on the bottom rack of the dishwasher. You can tell me no, Wyn, but you can’t tell yourself it’s what I want. If you’re too afraid, if you can’t have faith in me, then tell me to go, but don’t convince yourself it’s what I wanted.”

“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.”

“Are you saying I can come home?” “I’m saying,” he murmurs softly, “it’s not home unless you’re there.”

“I love you,” I tell him. “In every universe.”

“Because it makes me happy,” I say. “And I don’t consider anything that does that a waste of time.”

UR not responsible for Mom’s feelings. At least that’s what my therapist says. I just wanted to check in on you bc she’s convinced UR having some kind of breakdown. R U?

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.

And I say, What about you? Don’t you want to be happy? and she looks so baffled, like the thought had never occurred to her. All that time, those nights lying awake in my little yellow bedroom making bargains with the sky, spending wishes on her joy, and now I understand.

Before I even see him, my heart starts singing its favorite song. You, you, you.