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.”

I move my hand down him. “I’ll be less upset once you’re inside me.”

“Is this real?” I ask.
He reaches for my waist. “What else would it be?”
“A dream,” I say.
He pulls me in against him, his warm, damp stomach sliding against mine. “Can’t be,” he says. “In my dreams, you’re always on top.”

The very last person I expected to see.
The very last person I want to see.
Wyn Connor.
My fiancé.

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

You, you,
you.

I want to remember him like this, while he’s still mine and I’m his.

“Joke’s on you,” I say. “The periodic table was my boy band poster.”

He groans. “God, you’re such a nerd.”

I lace my fingers against the back of his preternaturally warm neck. “But you still like me?”

“You,” he says, “are my periodic table.”

meeting at the cottage is like pulling on a favorite sweatshirt, worn to perfection.

Time doesn’t move the same way when we’re there.

Things change, but we stretch and grow and make room for one another.

Our love is a place we can always come back to, and it will be waiting, the same as it ever was.

You belong here.