Happy Place

They belonged to you before I ever saw you. They belong to you in every universe we’re in, Harriet.”

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

“But that’s the point. Your job doesn’t have to be your identity. It can just be a place you go, that doesn’t define you or make you miserable. You deserve to be happy, Harriet.”

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.

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.

“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.”

My arms twine around him, my heart speeding wildly as the wind batters us. “I love you,” I tell him.

“In every universe.” He kisses me then, a windblown curl caught between our lips. Like it’s a first and a last. The end of one era and the beginning of another.

This, I know, is exactly where I want to be.

And I don’t want you to go.”

then I met you, and I didn’t feel so lost or aimless. Because even if there was nothing else for me, it felt like loving you was what I was made for. And it didn’t matter what anyone thought of me. It didn’t matter if I didn’t have any other big plans for myself, as long as I got to love you.”

I have this gaping wound, and no idea how it got there. It’s killing me hearing how happy you are, without even understanding how I—how I—” My voice quavers, my breath coming in spurts. “I don’t know what I did to make you so miserable.”

That I’ve known since that first trip to Indiana that I would never be enough to make him happy, that I couldn’t give him the kind of love his parents had when my only education on the subject had been the one my parents had.