The Problem With Happiness
That night, Clara could not sleep.
Not because something was wrong.
Because everything suddenly felt too right.
She lay awake beneath heavy blankets while pale moonlight stretched across the walls of her room at Blackwater House. Outside, Edinburgh had gone quiet beneath the cold winter night, the streets below softened by fog and distant amber streetlights.
Normally, Clara loved nighttime. It had always been the hour when her thoughts slowed enough for her to breathe properly.
Tonight, however, her mind refused to rest.
Every conversation with Elias replayed endlessly in her head.
The hill overlooking the city.
The way he held her.
The quiet honesty in his voice whenever he admitted something difficult.
And most dangerously, the look in his eyes when she mentioned imagining a future with him.
Clara turned onto her side with a frustrated sigh and buried her face briefly into the pillow.
This was becoming terrifyingly serious.
Not in the dramatic unrealistic way romance novels often described love. Nothing between her and Elias felt exaggerated or theatrical. What made it frightening was how natural it felt.
Like they had slowly become part of each other’s lives without noticing when the change happened.
At some point, Clara stopped thinking about him as someone she met in Scotland.
Now she thought about him the way people think about home.
The realization alone was enough to keep her awake.
Around two in the morning, unable to tolerate her own thoughts any longer, Clara finally climbed out of bed and wrapped herself in a sweater before heading downstairs.
Blackwater House was almost completely dark at this hour. Only the soft glow from the fireplace in the sitting room illuminated the hallway as Clara moved quietly through the old building.
She expected to be alone.
Instead, she found Elias sitting near the fire with a book resting unopened in his hands.
He looked up immediately when she entered the room.
For a second, both of them seemed surprised.
Then a faint smile appeared on his face.
“You too?” he asked softly.
Clara laughed quietly while walking closer. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Same.”
She sat down beside him on the couch, pulling the blanket draped over the armrest across her legs. The warmth from the fireplace settled softly around them while rain began tapping lightly against the windows again.
For several moments, neither spoke.
Clara noticed Elias still holding the same unopened page in his book.
“You haven’t actually been reading that, have you?” she asked.
“No.”
“What were you thinking about?”
His expression shifted slightly, like he was deciding how honest to be.
“You.”
The answer came so naturally that Clara’s chest tightened instantly.
“You really need to stop saying things like that casually.”
“I’m beginning to realize you interpret everything emotionally.”
“That’s because everything you say sounds emotionally devastating.”
A soft laugh escaped him before he leaned back against the couch.
Clara studied him quietly in the firelight. Without the distractions of daytime, Elias looked more vulnerable somehow tonight. Less guarded. More tired in the honest emotional way people become when they stop pretending they’re unaffected by something.
Or someone.
The thought warmed her chest again.
“You know what scares me?” she asked after a while.
Elias glanced toward her. “I suspect I’m about to.”
Clara smiled faintly before looking down at her hands beneath the blanket. “I think I’m happier right now than I’ve been in years.”
The room fell quiet.
Elias understood immediately why that frightened her.
Because happiness creates vulnerability.
The moment something begins mattering deeply enough to lose, fear arrives beside it automatically.
“I spent so long trying to build a life that looked stable,” Clara continued softly. “Even when I was unhappy with Daniel, I kept convincing myself that comfort was enough.”
She laughed weakly under her breath.
“And now suddenly I’m here with you, and everything feels real in ways I forgot life could feel.”
Elias stayed quiet beside her, listening carefully the way he always did.
Clara turned slightly toward him. “What if this falls apart once reality catches up to us?”
The question lingered heavily between them.
Because reality would catch up eventually.
Flights back to Boston still existed.
Jobs still existed.
Entire oceans still existed.
Love did not magically erase practical difficulties no matter how deeply two people cared about each other.
Elias rested his elbows against his knees for a moment before answering carefully.
“I don’t know,” he admitted honestly.
The answer should have frightened her more.
Instead, she appreciated it.
Because Elias never offered false reassurance simply to make difficult emotions easier. He respected honesty too much for that.
“But,” he continued quietly, “I know I haven’t wanted to fight for something in a very long time.”
Clara’s heartbeat slowed painfully.
Elias looked down at his hands briefly before speaking again.
“When Sophie died, part of me stopped imagining a future entirely. I didn’t even realize how completely until you arrived.” His voice softened. “Now every time I think about next month, or next year, you’re there automatically.”
The confession settled deep inside her chest.
Clara moved closer instinctively until her shoulder rested lightly against his.
“I think that’s happening to me too,” she whispered.
Outside, rain slid gently against the windows while the fire crackled beside them.
The guesthouse around them remained silent and warm, wrapped in the stillness only old buildings seem capable of carrying at night.
Elias turned slightly toward her then, his expression thoughtful.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Depends how emotionally dangerous it is.”
A faint smile touched his face before fading again.
“If Daniel hadn’t left…” He hesitated briefly. “Do you think you still would’ve stayed with him?”
The question surprised her.
Not because it was unfair.
Because she already knew the answer.
Clara looked toward the fireplace while thinking carefully before speaking.
“For a while, yes,” she admitted quietly. “I think I would’ve kept trying to make it work because leaving felt more frightening than settling.” She exhaled slowly. “But eventually I would’ve realized I was lonely even beside him.”
Elias listened silently.
Clara turned toward him fully now.
“I never felt truly seen until you.”
The words entered the room softly, but Elias reacted like they carried enormous weight.
His eyes lowered briefly before he shook his head once, almost disbelieving.
“You have no idea what that means to hear.”
Clara reached for his hand beneath the blanket, intertwining their fingers gently.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I think I do.”
The silence afterward felt intimate in a way neither of them needed to disturb.
Eventually, Clara rested her head lightly against his shoulder while the fire burned low beside them.
Neither spoke again for a long time.
And somewhere in the middle of that quiet winter night, Clara realized the most frightening part of love was not falling into it.
It was reaching the moment where another person’s happiness started feeling inseparable from your own.