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.”

“In every universe, it’s you for me. Even if it’s not me for you.”

I choose a picture of Hudson that shows off his high cheekbones, his pointed chin, his glossy dark hair. When I hold it out, Wyn grabs my wrist to steady it and squints at the screen. Then he slides my phone from my hand and brings it closer to his eyes. “Why isn’t he smiling?”

“He is,” I say. “That’s how he smiles. It’s subtle.”

“This guy,” Wyn says, “only smiles when he’s looking in the mirror. Which is also how he masturbates. While wearing his Harvard sweatshirt.”

“Oh my god, Wyn. You are officially the snob among us.” I reach for my phone, but he rolls onto his stomach, taking it with him.

Slowly, he swipes back through my pictures, taking each in before moving to the next. I flop down next to him and peer over his shoulder as he pauses on a shot of me in the library, hunched over a notebook, several towers of textbooks lined up in front of me.

“Cute.” He glances over his shoulder at me, then back to the phone before I can react.

He spreads his thumb and finger over the image to zoom in on my face. I watch him in profile, his face lit up, his dimples shadowing. “So fucking cute,” he repeats quietly.

He clears his throat. “Tomorrow.”

My voice comes out thin. “Tomorrow what?”

“We’ll measure the distance,” he says. “Whoever’s guess is closest wins.”

“Wins what?” I ask.

His lips twitch. One of his perfectly curved shoulders lifts. “I don’t know, Harriet. What do you want?”

“You say my name a lot,” I say.

“You hardly ever say mine,” he replies. “That’s why I had to get you to say Wins what.”

I smile at the floor, which underscores how close we’re standing. “Wins what, Wyn?”

When I look up, his lips are pressed tight, his dimples out full force. “I honestly forget what we were talking about.”

He brushes his thick hair up off his forehead, and it stays there, all except that one strand, of course, which is determined to fall sensually across his eyebrow. “Maybe you make me a little nervous.”

“Yeah, right,” I say, spine tingling.

“Just because you don’t see me grabbing a mop every time you walk into a room doesn’t mean I don’t notice you’re there.”

It feels like a bowling ball has landed in my stomach, a sudden drop. Then come the butterflies.

Blood rerouting, vessels constricting, I tell myself. Meaningless.

“Why?” I ask.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” he says, “and please don’t ask me to act it out.”

“You make me a little nervous too,” I admit.

Think of your happy place, the cool voice in my ear instructs.

Picture it. Glimmering blue washes across the backs of my eyes.

How does it smell? Wet rock, brine, butter sizzling in a deep fryer, and a spritz of lemon on the tip of my tongue.

What do you hear? Laughter, the slap of water against the bluffs, the hiss of the tide drawing back over sand and stone.

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.

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 was school if not a chance to earn your worth? To prove, again and again, that you were measurably good.