Page 78 of Okay, Cupid

“The self-discovery, going for what you want. It’s why I still think this movie counts in the canon, even if there isn’t a lot of romance.” What’s worse, there’s technically cheating.

“The romance canon?”

“You know, the pantheon of rom-coms. The stories that date back to Jane Austen and before. What we consider the core stories.”

“Okay, I think you’re getting in a little too deep for me.”

“It’s not that complicated,” I tell him.

“I trust you.”

“Prada has all the things you’d expect. The discovery of oneself and going for what you want. At the end of the movie, despite the future that awaits her, she makes the decision to head into the unknown, to leave behind the comfort of a promised life so that she doesn’t lose a piece of herself. It’s a journey that many a rom-com protagonist goes on.”

“I can see that,” Huy says to me. “Do you think she makes the right choice?”

“Well, based on the ending, we know she does.”

“Right, but if you were in her shoes, if there was no script to go off, if you had to make the choice to leave behind a guarantee for something else, would you?”

It doesn’t hit me until he’s said the words.

“I don’t know,” I tell him. “It’s hard when you don’t know.”

“Well, yeah. But you have to make those decisions all the time, right? Unless you’re secretly a psychic.” He laughs, and then pauses. “You’re not, right?”

“If I were a psychic, I would’ve told you not to play that third game today.”

“Fair enough.” He sighs. “But you didn’t answer the question.”

“Go for what you know, right? Isn’t that the safest option?” I tell him. Because it’s true. Why wouldn’t you go for what’s promised?

“The unknown doesn’t intrigue you?”

“Would you do what Andy did?”

“Maybe. You never know what’s out there, right? You never know if there’s something better waiting for you unless you go for it.”

“But the safety?”

“Isn’t that a bit boring, though? I mean, what’s life without a little risk?”

“Risky.”

He pretends to snore, grunting out an ugly sound. “Ugh, snooze fest.”

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to keep things the way they are.”

“But if you do that, you never know what else might come your way. Who was that guy, that poet … ?”

“I have bad news: There are a lot of poets.”

“We talked about him in English. The road-less-traveled guy.”

“Frost.” I’m all too familiar with him after the poetry unit I had to do.

“Yeah! That guy. He took the road less traveled and look at where it got him.”

“That was a metaphor,” I tell Huy. “The poem is about irony, about people who always wonder what the other path looked like. The regret that they carry with them. About second-guessing yourself even when it’s too late to do anything about it.”