Prologue
Ella
The problem with fairytales is that stupid line at the end: ”And then they lived happily ever after.”
The summer I was nineteen, I fell in love. It was the truest, most exhilarating happiness I had ever felt. During the biggest celebration of the summer, at my parents’ extremely tony country club, I got on a stage and announced I was in love with her...and him. I had been terrified of coming out. But at that moment, I had never felt more alive, more myself, more proud of who Jack, Hailey, and I were to each other. It was our perfect happily ever after.
I’m here to tell you I get why movies, books, and even your grandmother when she wants you to go the fuck to sleep use those three magic words. It’s because you’ve hit the pinnacle in a love affair when everything wraps up nice and tight for a perfect moment in time. When there’s a happily ever after, you don’t have to explain what happens the next day, or the day after that.
It’s probably why grandmothers, movies, and television quit telling kids the OG scary fairy tales—the ones where the mermaid loses the prince and turns into sea foam or the little match girl freezes to death in the snow. The after that happens after the words happily ever is dark and depressing and exactly how things would turn out in real life. There is no everlasting love. There is no endless summer.
How can I tell you this so confidently?
Because in six weeks, I’m getting married to a business major named Charlie.