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 just want to be here with you, Har.”

From the loneliness, from the fear that I would never escape it. Because feelings were changeable, and people were unpredictable. You couldn’t hold on to them through the force of will.

Maybe I need to know that he remembers, that he hasn’t totally forgotten what it felt like to love me, while I’m trapped with him burned onto my heart, my brain, my lungs, my skin.

I just know every second before we touched felt like a century. Then once we did, time lost all meaning.

No one else’s happiness is yours to grant, Mom, I tell her. You need to find yours.

“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.”

I want my life to be like—like making pottery. I want to enjoy it while it’s happening, not just for where it might get me eventually.