Happy Place by Emily Henry

Happy Place

by Emily Henry

Published by Berkley

Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college—they go together like salt and pepper, honey and tea, lobster and rolls.

Except, now—for reasons they’re still not discussing—they don’t.

They broke up six months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.

Which is how they find themselves sharing the largest bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blue week they leave behind their daily lives; have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood; and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most.

Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends’ hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week… in front of those who know you best?

Genre

#ContemporaryRomance

Triggers

Struggles with self-esteem and depression. Loss of a parent.

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I have had this book on my shelf a long ass time, and I'm FINALLY reading it.

I actually have been doing a pretty good job trying to read the books on my bookshelf.

Happy Place also so happens to be my first Emily Henry book.

I loved it.

There is just something about second chance romances that digs it's claws into me and doesn't let go.

I think it's because, to some extent, we have all been in a situations where we have had our heart broken. Despite the problems that led to the break up, you still love that person. Deeply.

Whether you move on, or eventually find happiness with that person again, these type of romances just hit a little different.

Happy Place certainly did for me.

I loved the back and forth in time (I always do), but Emily's labeling of these chapters was brilliant. The past, where Harriet and Wyn meet and fall in love, is not just simply labeled the past.

Each of those chapters starts out as the "Happy Place".

Afterall, they say that the past should be left in the past.

The past is done.

But not for these two.

Her memories of them together is her happy place.

I love that.

I also loved the setting of this book - which is certainly a different type of happy place.

I'm 37. Married. Kids. I work. As much as I hate to admit it, most of my friendships from my younger years have dwindled down to occasional conversations or messages online. Life gets in the way, for everyone.

I love this idea where all these college roommates and friends agree on a week every summer to vacation at their friends luxury cabin. To spend time together, have fun and relax.

It's the perfect setting for a second-chance romance - especially when the characters haven't told their friends that they are broken up, and still have to pretend, to not mess up a special week for their friends.

I read this months ago, and I'm smiling just thinking about it.

Honestly, everything about this book, I just got.

I understood, and could even relate to most of the feelings these characters went through. It just made it that much more gripping.

The happiness and chemistry between Harriet and Wyn in their Happy Place.

The ache and tension between them in Real Life.

The bittersweet emotions that comes at the end of an era between this group of friends that genuinely loves one another.

It just all comes together into an amazing, achingly sweet romance.

The best part of this romance?

The break up had nothing to do with how much they loved and respected one another.

It had everything to do with two people who needed to work on themselves.

Especially Wyn.

Even though Happy Place is strictly Harriet's POV, I connected to Wyn the most. His struggles, especially when it comes to mental health, felt very real, and something I struggle with daily. There is a specific line in the book that spoke to me.

"Do you remember what you told me about your brain?"

His hand pauses.

"You said it felt like Ferris wheel. Like all your thoughts were constantly circling, and you'd reach out for one, but it was hard to stay on it for too long because they kept spinning."

What a perfect analogy.

I loved Happy Place. Since reading this, I've already read most of her other books, and spoiler, I mostly loved them too.

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Sabrina: "God, I'm so sorry - ever since Ray got sober, I swear he flies like a dying bumblebee."

Harriet: "How did he fly back when he was still drinking?"

Sabrina: "Oh, the same."

She hops in behind the steering wheel, and I drop into the passenger seat beside her.

Sabrina: "But his intercom banter was a fucking delight."

Harriet: "Wait, wait, wait. You don't date your friends? Who do you date, Wyn? Enemies? Strangers? Malevolent spirits who died in your apartment building?"

Wyn: "It's a good policy. It keeps things from getting messy."

Harriet: "It's dating, Wyn, not an all-you-can-eat barbeque buffet. Although, from what I've heard, maybe for you they're the same thing."

He looks at me through his lashes and tuts.

Wyn: "Are you slut-shaming me, Harriet?"

Harriet: "Not at all. I love sluts! Some of my best friends are sluts. I've dabbled in sluttery myself."

Wyn: "I've got in."

Harriet: "Stop trying to be charming,"

I hiss.

Harriet: "No one's watching."

Wyn: "I'm not."

Harriet: "Are too."

Wyn: "No."

He jerks my bag further out of reach as I lunge for it.

Wyn: "I'm doing this for the sheer pleasure of annoying you."

Harriet: "If that's all, then you don't have to try so hard. Your mere presence is doing the trick."

Wyn: "Yeah, well, you've always made me want to aim a little higher, Harriet."

Harriet: "Because I'm loud?"

Wyn: "Because they're brilliant like you. And also because you laugh like a helicopter."

Unfortunately, that causes me to prove his point.

Harriet: "Wow. Stop hitting on me."

Wyn: "It's cute."

Another full-body flush.

Harriet: "Okay, now you really need to stop flirting with me."

Wyn: "You make it sound so easy."

Harriet: "I believe in you."

Wyn: "You don't need to be any more impressive. You're already ..."

In the corner of my eye, he waves his arms in that huge circle again.

Harriet: "A freakishly large watermelon."

Wyn: "Why isn't he smiling?"

Harriet: "He is. That's how he smiles. It's subtle."

Wyn: "This guy, only smiles when he's looking in the mirror. Which is also how he masturbates. While wearing his Harvard sweatshirt."

Harriet: "You don't date your friends."

Wyn: "You're not my friend, Harriet,"

he says quietly.

Harriet: "What am I, then?"

Wyn: "I don't know. But not that."

Wyn: "Drink some water."

Harriet: "I don't need water. I need a time machine."

Wyn: "I'm not made of money, Harriet. Water's all I've got."

Harriet: "I'm fine,"

he says tersely, perching on the bottom step. He sets the wine aside and yanks his hiking boot off.

Harriet: "Oh my God, Wyn. It's been five minutes. How long until you're dropping your pants and designating a pee corner?"

He tears the foil from around the wine bottle's cork.

Wyn: "I won't need a pee corner. I'll use this bottle when we're done drinking it. You on the other hand ... you're going to be out of luck unless you learn to aim, fast."

I unfold my arms only to recross them when his gaze tracks the movement straight to my chest.

Harriet: "Are you walking around with a corkscrew in your pocket at ten thirty in the morning?"

Wyn: "No. I'm just happy to see you."

Wyn: "They you touched my jaw."

He lifts my hand slowly, sets is against his scratchy jaw.

Harriet: "I didn't mean to,"

I get out, almost defensively.

I don't even know if I mean way back then or now. My pulse is screaming through my palm and fingertips into his skin. The memory of that fevered first kiss in the dark presses in on us from all sides.

Wyn: "I thought I made you."

He tips his head so that my hand slides back toward his ear.

Wyn: "Just by wishing."

Wyn: "Remember when you told me you thought you were slow-release hot?"

Harriet: "I finally stopped falling asleep to that humiliating memory one month ago, and now I have to star all over over."

Wyn: "I think I love you, Harriet."

Love, I think. That's new. And I'll never be happy without it again.

Without any forethought, any worry, I tell him the truth.,

Harriet: "I know I love you, Wyn."

Parth: "Harry, I'm serious,"

Parth says, setting his hands on my shoulders.

Parth: "Don't you date break my delicate angel's heart."

Sabrina snorts.

Sabrina: "Oh, come on. Wyn better not break her heart."

Cleo: "There's no need for all this pressure."

Parth: "He would never in a million years hurt her,"

Parth says to Sabrina, passing Wyn and me each a glass of champagne. Just like that, they're back to their old squabbling selves.

Sabrina: "And she's been secretly obsessed with him for years,"

Sabrina argues.

Wyn: "Speaking of unspoken sexual tension,"

Wyn grumbles, waving his glass in their direction.

Wyn: "You two want us to leave you alone for this argument or can we be done now?"

Sabrina: "Ew!"

Parth pulls a face.

Parth: "Thank you, Sabrina."

Sabrina: "I'm not saying you're gross. I'm saying the idea of us is gross."

Kimmy: "I'm hiring a hit man to take out Sabrina for buying that last round of Fireball last night,"

Kimmy says, flinging her forearm over her face.

Kimmy: "Feel free to Venmo me your contribution."

At the counter, I spot my seatmate from the flight over and wave. He harrumphs and looks back to his newspaper.

Wyn: "Friend of yours?"

Wyn murmurs against my ear as everyone's peeling off their drenched outermost layers. His cool breath against my damp skin makes me shiver.

I drop into my chair and look up at him.

Harriet: "That would depend on which of us you asked."

Wyn: "What, has he been bugging you to define the relationship?"

Harriet: "Other way around. I'm head over heels, but he's married to the sea."

Wyn: "Ah, well, it happens."

Harriet: "What the hell, Parth!"

I cry.

Parth: "You were choking!"

Harriet: "I was not."

Parth: "Okay, well, I'm not the doctor here, so."

Wyn: "And is WebMD now telling people that if someone's choking the best thing to do is punch them in the back of the head?"

Parth: "It wasn't the back of her head. It was more like ... mid-spine."

Harriet: "Ah, yes, the lesser-known cousin to the Heimlich maneuver. The right hook."

Parth: "I'm sorry, Harry,"

Parth cries.

Parth: "Instinct took over!"

Cleo: "You have the instincts of a Victorian women's hospital orderly."

Harriet: "Next time, stick with the leeches."

Harriet: "Everyone loved you, Wyn."

He looks at me through his lashes, his mouth curling.

Wyn: "No, Harriet. They wanted to hook up with me. That's not the same thing. I never fit there."

I pull my fingers away from the icy fence and touch the spot where his dimple belongs. The corners of his mouth twitch, and the dip appears under my middle finger.

Harriet: "You fit with me, and I was there."

Wyn: "I know. I think that's really why I went. To find you."

Harriet: "That's a very expensive dating app."

Wyn: "You get what you pay for."

My hands fall to the collar of his coat, the tops of my fingers tucking in against his hot skin.

Harriet: "Did you at least figure out what you wanted too?"

In the dying light, the green ridges in his eyes glitter like bits of mica underwater. His work-coarsened hands circle my wrists, his thumbs gentle on the delicate skin there.

Wyn: "This. Just this."

Wyn: "My mom said you were taking a pottery class."

Harriet: "Oh. Yeah."

Wyn: "I pretended I already knew about it."

Harriet: "Right. That's good."

Wyn: "But she mentioned that she thinks you're getting better. And your newest bowl looked way less like a butt."

The laugh rockets out of me as if shot from a cannon.

Harriet: "That's funny, because you should have seen the rapturous text she sent me about that butt-bowl. She pretended it was very good."

Wyn: "Nah."

He grins.

Wyn: "She wasn't pretending. She told me it was really good. It just also looked like a butt."

Kimmy: "Pssst."

Kimmy leans forward around Cleo. She holds a plastic sandwich bag out to me.

I squint at the contents.

Harriet: "Are you trying to sell me drugs?"

Kimmy: "Of course not. I'm trying to give you drugs."

She swings the little red gummy bears in front of Cleo's face and tosses them into my lap.

Harriet: "You are so discreet."

Harriet: "How strong are they?"

I whisper.

Kimmy shrugs.

Kimmy: "Not too strong."

Harriet: "Not too strong for you or not too strong for me?"

Kimmy: "Let's put it this way. You'll have a great time, but you won't make me call the hospital and ask them if you're going to die. Again."

Sabrina: "I want a cup of extremely foamy beer,"

she says dreamily.

Kimmy: "I want french fries covered in Old Bay."

Cleo's nose wrinkles out a laugh.

Cleo: "I want a video camera so tomorrow you can see how high you all are."

Harriet: "I feel young!"

I cry, which makes Sabrina cackle again, throw her arms out to her sides, and spin twice.

Parth grabs my shoulders and says urgently,

Parth: "We are young, Harry. We'll always be young. It's a state of mind."

Cleo: "Now seems like a good time to tell you, Kim buys this shit from a neighbor who makes it at home. It's not regulated. Hope you're all prepared to go to the fucking moon."

Kimmy's eyes have essentially disappeared at this point.

Kimmy: "Listen, you're gonna have a great time. Moon's beautiful this time of year."

Wyn: "Later that day we all shared one joint, then went to the museum, and you watched that boat-making presentation for like thirty-five minutes without blinking."

Harriet: "He was an artist!"

I cry.

Wyn: "He was. And for like two hours, you were convinced you were going to quit medical school to make boats."

Harriet: "I hadn't even been on a boat at that point."

Wyn: "I don't think that's strictly required."

Harriet: "Do you remember what you told me about your brain?"

His hand pauses.

Harriet: "You said it felt like Ferris wheel. Like all your thoughts were constantly circling, and you'd reach out for one, but it was hard to stay on it for too long because they kept spinning."

The lines of his face soften.

Wyn: "Except with you. You're like gravity."

I couldn't have pulled myself away from him then if he'd burst into flames.

Wyn: "Everything keeps spinning,"

he says in a low, hoarse voice.

Wyn: "But my mind's always got one hand on you."

Wyn brings one of my hands to his mouth, his expression serious.

Wyn: "How many universes do you think we're together in?"

Harriet: "Higher than either of us can count."

His mouth quirks.

Wyn: "And you can count very high."

Harriet: "It's true. That's how they decide who gets into medical school. You stand in front of a committee of doctors and count as high as you can."

His lips twitch.

Wyn: "Do they let you use your fingers?"

Harriet: "None of the good schools do."

He flattens his hand between his palms.

Wyn: "I'm glad I'm in one of those. I feel bad for all the Wyns in the universes where you're with guys like Harvard Hudson. They're so miserable right now, Harriet."

Harriet: "Or the Harriets in universes where you're with the Dancers Named Allison of the world."

Wyn: "No,"

he says quietly.

Wyn: "In every universe, it's you for me. Even if it's not me for you."

Cleo: "Where exactly are we going?"

Sabrina has already taken her station at the chrome steering wheel, and Parth is zigzagging around the little vessel, loosening lines. At least I assume that's what he's doing. Everything I know about boats I learned while high out of my mind, so it's hard to say.

Parth: "Wherever the wind takes us,"

Parth cries over his shoulder.

Cleo: "So we're going to die."

Sabrina: "Possibly. But first we're going to see some puffins and harbor seals."

Kimmy: "Well, I think you're all overdressed. The itinerary said comfortable, and if you wanted to be comfortable, then you, like me, would not be wearing underwear."

Parth: "Hard agree."

Sabrina looks nonplussed.

Sabrina: "Are you seriously not wearing any underwear?"

Parth drops into the seat beside Wyn.

Parth: "What, it's fine for Kimmy but not for me?"

Wyn: "Kimmy isn't wearing white pants made out of tissue paper,"

Wyn points out.

Parth's hands go protectively toward his crotch, then he sighs, resigned.

Parth: "Whatever. Everyone in this boat has seen me named at some point or another."

Kimmy: "I actually haven't,"

Kimmy says thoughtfully.

Parth: "Well, Kimberley, it might just be your lucky day."

Wyn: "You never annoy me."

I look up, catch him watching me.

My laugh is breathless, woozy.

Harriet: "We both know that's not true."

He studies me for a second, brow furrowed.

Wyn: "Frustrate, maybe. Not annoy."

Harriet: "What's the difference?"

His eyes drop to my legs and back up.

Wyn: "When you're annoyed, you don't want to be around a person."

His chin shifts to the left, not quite a shake of his head.

Wyn: "I always want to be around you."

Wyn: "But first I want to see everything."

Harriet: "My boobs?"

I joke.

Wyn: "Those too. But I was thinking more like your boy band posters and embarrassing diaries."

Harriet: "Jokes on you. The periodic table was my boy band poster."

He groans.

Wyn: "God, you're such a nerd."

I lace my fingers against the back of his preternaturally warm neck.

Harriet: "But you still like me?"

Wyn: "You are my periodic table."

I laugh into his chest.

Harriet: "I don't know what that means."

Wyn: "It means when we get home, I'm covering our walls in lewd posters of you."

Harriet: "It's always fun to have a home improvement project."

Wyn: "Sometimes when things go wrong, it's easy to blame someone else. Because it simplifies things. It takes any responsibility out of your hands. And I don't know if your parents did that to you and your sister or if somewhere along the way you took that blame on yourself, but it's not your fault. None of it. Your parents made their decisions, and I'm not saying their situation was easy, or that they didn't do that best they could. But it wasn't enough, Harriet. If you could even think that, if you could ever even fucking wonder if they regretted you, then they didn't do enough."

Harriet: "So that's it?"

I say raggedly.

Harriet: "I took up all the oxygen, and you didn't tell me until I'd suffocated you. Until you didn't love me anymore, and there was nothing I could do."

Wyn: "I will always love you,"

he says fiercely.

Wyn: "That's the point, Harriet. It's the only thing that's ever come naturally to me. The thing I don't have to work at. I loved you all the way across the fucking country, and at my darkest, on my worst day, I still love you more than I've ever loved anything else."

Wyn: "Everything's different and nothing's changed, Harriet. I tried so fucking hard to let you go, to let you be happy, and when I see you, I still feel like - like you're mine. Like I'm yours. I got rid of every single piece of you, like that would make a different, like I could cut you out of me, and instead, I just see everywhere you're supposed to be."

Wyn: "Harriet,"

he rasps against my ear.

Wyn: "You're so fucking soft."

Harriet: "Thanks,"

I say, breathless.

Harriet: "I don't work out."

His laugh melts into another groan.

Wyn: "Later. Let me buy you dinner first."

Harriet: "I'm a modern woman, Wyn. I'll buy you dinner. I mean, if I can afford your dinner now that you're fancy."

Wyn: "You get me a gas station hot dog, Harriet Kilpatrick,"

he says, kissing the corner of my mouth,

Wyn: "and I'll give you the best night of your life."

Harriet: "It's like driving. Get your hands a little damp."

Wyn: 'Oh, I never drive with damp hands."

Harriet: "Well, that's your first mistake. It's illegal to drive with dry hands."

Wyn: "I think the laws are different in Montana."

Harriet: "Don't be ridiculous. There are no laws in Montana. If you have a big enough hate, you can just claim whatever you want, and it's yours."

Wyn: "True. I once owned a slew of Walmarts that way."

Harriet: "Until a guy with a bigger hate came along."

Harriet: "I don't want to keep feeling like this."

Wyn: "It'll get easier,"

he promises hoarsely, his hand brushing my hair behind my ear.

Wyn: "Someday you'll hardly remember this."

The thought is searing. I don't want that. I want any universe but that one. All the rest, where it's him and me, scattered across time and space, finding our way to each other again and again, the one contact, the only essential.

I can't bear to let him go. But it's like he said.

We're out of time.

Harriet: "We should get back,"

I whisper.

Wyn lifts his chin towards the case, asks damply,

Wyn: "Should we scrap it?"

I shake my head.

Harriet: "Maybe they can ship it once it's been fired."

Wyn: "You really want it?"

I study it in all its wavy, wonky glory, my rib cage so tight I can't get a good breath, a firm beat of my heart.

Harriet: "Desperately."

Sabrina: "WHAT!"

Sabrina whirls on her, her hands jerking clear of ours to clamp onto the sides of her face in a perfect imitation of Macaulay Culkin's big Home Alone moment.

Cleo: "Shit! I was going to tell you in a speech!"

Sabrina: "You're fucking serious?"

Sabrina shouts.

Cleo: "We're in a chapel."

Sabrina: "Oh, please. God's heard it all. But me! I've only once ever heard one of my best friends say she's motherfucking pregnant!"

Cleo: "Well, I'm motherfucking pregnant. Surprise."

Sabrina: "Honestly, anything else you both want to get off your chests, now's the time! I'm incapable of anger right now, I think."

Harriet: "I broke your straightener in college."

Cleo: "I once had a girl stay over who used your toothbrush, thinking it was mine."

Sabrina: "Okay, gross. I could've gone to my grave without that second one."

Harriet: "I'm the one who lost those vintage Ray-Bans we used to share. God, that's actually a huge load off."

Cleo: "Oh! I told that one shitty poet you dated that I was a witch, and that if he ever contacted you again, I'd hex him so his dick fell off."

Sabrina touches her chest, evidently moved.

Sabrina: "See, this is why you're going to be a great mother."

Harriet: "I didn't know you did that,"

I tell Cleo.

Harriet: "If I had, I probably wouldn't have told the same guy that my dad was in the mob."

A laugh cracks out of Sabrina.

Sabrina: "I have the best friends."

Wyn: "I love you,"

he says into my mouth, and I wish I could swallow it, like that would let me keep that sound forever, this moment forever.

My nose burns. My voice crackles.

Harriet: "Don't say that."

Wyn: "Why not?"

Harriet: "Because, those words don't belong to me anymore."

Wyn: "Of course they do. They belonged to you before I ever saw you. They belong to you in every universe we're in, Harriet."

Want is a kind of thief. It's a door in your heart, and once you know it's there, you'll spend your life longing for whatever's behind it.

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#beta #firstlove #forbiddenlove #friendstolovers #girlnextdoor #secondchance #setup #slowburn #smalltown #vacation #wrongside