I Could Live Here Forever

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A BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB PICK

“Halperin’s radiant second novel walks the fine line between the longing for couplehood and the torture of codependency. . . . Let the rapturous intimacy and gut-churning ups and downs begin!” —Leigh Haber, The New York Times Book Review

“I read this book in three days and canceled plans to finish it. It is heart-wrenching and relatable in so many ways.” —Emma Roberts

By the award-winning author of Something Wild, a gripping portrait of a tumultuous, consuming relationship between a young woman and a recovering addict

When Leah Kempler meets Charlie Nelson in line at the grocery store, their attraction is immediate and intense. Charlie, with his big feelings and grand proclamations of love, captivates her completely. But there are peculiarities of his life—he’s older than her but lives with his parents; he meets up with a friend at odd hours of the night; he sleeps a lot and always seems to be coming down with something. He confesses that he’s a recovering heroin addict, but he promises Leah that he’s never going to use again.

Leah’s friends and family are concerned. As she finds herself getting deeper into an isolated relationship, one of manipulation and denial, the truth about Charlie feels as blurry as their time together. Even when Charlie’s behavior becomes increasingly erratic, when he starts to make Leah feel unsafe, she can’t help but feel that what exists between them is destined. Charlie is wide open, boyish, and unbearably handsome. The bounds of Leah’s own pain—and love—are so deep that she can’t see him spiraling into self-destruction.

Hanna Halperin writes with aching vulnerability and intimacy, sharply attuned to Leah’s desire for an all-consuming, compulsive connection. I Could Live Here Forever exposes the chasm between perception and truth to tell an intoxicating story of one woman’s relationship with an addict, the accompanying swirl of compassion and codependence, and her enduring search for love and wholeness.Praise for I Could Live Here Forever

“Aching and tender. . . . Halperin’s radiant second novel walks the fine line between the longing for couplehood and the torture of codependency. . . . Halperin writes from a millennial point of view, probing themes of social anxiety and intense trepidation about the future. But Halperin’s take on love sets her apart: As misguided as Leah’s feelings for Charlie may seem, they are pure and hopeful — about as untainted by cynicism as it is possible to be.”
—Leigh Haber, The New York Times Book Review

“I read this book in three days and canceled plans to finish it. It is heart-wrenching and relatable in so many ways.”
—Emma Roberts  

“A compelling new version of the addiction novel. . . . I Could Live Here Forever brings readers deep into the world of addicts and those who love them. . . . Like addiction, and codependence, and internalized misogyny, I Could Live Here Forever is a wrenching story that’s been lived and told before. Halperin does us a service by sharing her version of it, entertaining, warning and educating us with her all-too-accurate novel.”
—Meredith Maran, The Washington Post

“This novel is so good and follows closely on the heels of Hanna Halperin’s prior novel (which I also loved), Something Wild. There’s just something about Halperin’s writing style and how she captures difficult, troubled characters.”
—Zibby Owens, Good Morning America

“A gripping novel about a couple’s troubled love story.”
—Cup of Jo

“Hanna Halperin’s second novel, I Could Live Here Forever, fearlessly delves into powerlessness in the face of addiction. . . . Halperin keenly captures the obsessive nature of [Leah and Charlie’s] relationship. . . . Halperin skillfully builds a story that carries us along on the couple’s journey, creating very human characters that we come to care about either despite or because of their flaws, and she keeps us turning pages to see how the story will unfold. You will find yourself wondering, will love win out, or the unnerving sense of foreboding prove true?”
—The Martha’s Vineyard Times

“I was intensely moved by I Could Live Here Forever—I read it in one day and finished sobbing, feeling that I and the author and her beautifully rendered characters had all been through something profound together. Leah’s relationship with Charlie is drawn with unsparing, unpretty candour which is constantly undercut by moments of dazzling tenderness—this book acts as a kind of vivid, devastating answer to the often heard question ‘How could you stay with a person like that?’ Halperin’s desire and ability to so deeply consider the lives in her book became as affecting to me as the story itself, creating the sort of author-reader intimacy rarely found but always prized. I will remember and re-read this gorgeous, emotionally intelligent, truly beautiful book often.” 
—Megan Nolan, author of Acts of Desperation

“A superb, uncynical novel about the innocence of unsustainable love—a wonderfully haunting and memorable book.”
—Joan Silber, award-winning author of Secrets of Happiness

“Somewhere between Fatal Attraction and what narrator Leah Kempler calls ‘some beautiful love story’ sits I Could Live Here Forever, Hanna Halperin’s smoldering, troubling and indelible second novel, following Something Wild. Although fraught love is a commonplace subject in fiction, Halperin’s sophomore effort has staked out fresh territory with a relationship that feels sui generis.”
—Shelf Awareness (starred review)

“Brutal, beautiful, unputdownable, I Could Live Here Forever is a dark romance that reads almost like a thriller and captures the emotional complexity of life in the twenty-first century. I loved it.”
—Joanna Rakoff, bestselling author of My Salinger Year and A Fortunate Age

“With an attention to intimate detail that is both unflinching and compassionate, Hanna Halperin conjures full, complex characters who challenged my understanding of the relationship between love and harm. I devoured this in a day.” 
—Naomi Krupitsky, New York Times bestselling author of The Family

“A stark, beautiful novel about the risk and intoxication of obsessive love and a young woman’s need to be needed. Hanna Halperin makes you feel her heroine’s hunger in every action and hesitation. Even as I feared for Leah, Halperin’s writing made it impossible to look away. You won’t be able to put this book down.”
—Alyssa Songsiridej, author of Little Rabbit

“I Could Live Here Forever is a gripping novel about the ways we try to be the best versions of ourselves, and pull each other back from collapse. With careful prose, lush descriptions, and skilled character insight, Hanna Halperin gives readers a stunning story that changes the way we see the people around us.” 
—Ethan Joella, author of A Little Hope

“While Leah’s self-destructive relationship with Charlie is the dark heart of the narrative, it is Leah’s gradual self-discovery of her own worth that breathes like a fresh new life. This, in the end, is a relationship well worth reading about.”
—New York Journal of Books

“I was immediately gripped by Hanna Halperin’s stunning novel, I Could Live Here Forever. With a frank assuredness reminiscent of Sally Rooney and Emma Cline, Halperin balances a close lens over both the anxiety and hopefulness of the Millennial viewpoint, bringing so much that has come to define the generation—the opioid crisis, economic and occupational precarity, the uncanny intensity of intimacy expressed on a smartphone—into stark relief. I felt so much heartbreak and fear and frustration for Leah and Charlie, whose love affair was as irresistible to me as it seemed to the characters themselves. This is a book that will stay with readers, and make them feel alive.” 
—Liv Stratman, author of Cheat Day

“A rich, deep, star-crossed love story both heartbreaking and beautiful to read.”
—Booklist

“Staggering. . . . The characters are real and vulnerable. . . . Many readers will feel they can identify with this portrait of self-discovery, messy emotions, and challenging relationships. Fans of Halperin’s first novel will also enjoy this offering.”
—Library Journal

“Halperin humanizes the tragedy of drug addiction through Charlie, who is sweet and kind and loving and also irreparably damaged. Wistful, honest, and heartbreaking.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“A doomed love affair frames this perceptive sophomore outing from Halperin. . . . The ‘buzzing electric hum’ between the couple feels vital, as does the pull of exasperating and enchanting Charlie on Leah. By the end, even the most grizzled reader might turn into a hopeless romantic.”
—Publishers Weekly

“I Could Live Here Forever, Halperin’s second book (after Something Wild) is about a woman’s relationship with an addict, fraught with compassion and codependence, and her enduring search for love.”
—PureWow

Praise for Something Wild
 
WINNER OF THE EDWARD LEWIS WALLANT AWARD

A NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD FINALIST FOR DEBUT FICTION
 
LONGLISTED FOR THE VCU CABELL FIRST NOVELIST AWARD

“This wise, brilliant novel is so special, so overflowing with honesty and love—about motherhood, sisterhood, what it’s like to be a woman—that every paragraph feels like an epiphany. Hanna Halperin knows the fierce love that can exist especially among broken things. Something Wild moved me deeply.”
—Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Untamed

“Propulsive . . . . Weaving between the past and the present of all three women, Something Wild creates a compelling, believable and upsetting portrayal of how trauma ripples through a family. . . . Good books sometimes cut to the bone, and this one feels like a scythe.” 
—Scaachi Koul, The New York Times Book Review

“Rarely has an author taken the time and demonstrated such honesty with the complexity of girls’ desire and how they act on it, how it can sour the sweetest relationship. . . . At a time when many novels rely on intricate plots or eccentric narrative voices, Something Wild eschews literary pyrotechnics and relies instead on the power of truth. We may not like what we see, but we know we’re being given an opportunity to change the way we look at sexual dynamics.” 
—Bethanne Patrick, The Washington Post

“Something Wild is the story of the fierce love and secrets that exist between sisters Tanya and Nessa and their mother, Lorraine—but I was just as impressed by the radical interiority that Hanna Halperin grants her characters. The women of this novel are painted with startling honesty and insight: they think the unthinkable, do the unfixable, and their raw vulnerability is thrilling, for it acknowledges our own. In this emotionally astute debut, Hanna Halperin shows herself to be a writer who is as compassionate as she is unafraid of darkness and taboo. Something Wild is tender, fearless, and savagely alive.”
—Chloe Benjamin, New York Times bestselling author of The Immortalists

“Something Wild is a gripping portrait of a family in all its shattered complexity. Hanna Halperin is a compassionate and wise writer, and in this searing debut she peels back the shiny exterior of the Bloom family and reveals what is true for us all: that secrets are psychic poison, and they transform us when they come tumbling out.”
—Dani Shapiro, New York Times bestselling author of Inheritance

“In Something Wild, Hanna Halperin takes a startling look at intimacy in its kaleidoscopic range—its capacity to make and undo us, to deliver us to danger and lead us out again. The grace of Halperin’s careful eye makes it impossible to diminish or look away from the women at the center of this book, even when their lives fail to give them the mercy we would want for them. This is a brave and exquisite debut.”
—Danielle Evans, author of The Office of Historical CorrectionsHanna Halperin is the author of Something Wild, which won the Edward Lewis Wallant Award, was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award for Debut Fiction, and was longlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. Her stories have been published in The Kenyon Review, n+1, New Ohio Review, and Joyland. She has taught fiction workshops at GrubStreet in Boston and worked as a domestic violence counselor.1

Charlie was soft-spoken, but when he sang, he could transform his voice to sound like anyone—Tom Waits, Frank Sinatra, David Bowie. The first time I heard him sing, I couldn’t believe that something so loud and powerful was coming from him. We met in Madison, Wisconsin, while I was getting my MFA in fiction writing. I was twenty-five years old. Charlie was thirty-one. He had studied creative writing, too, as an undergrad, but when I met him he was working in construction. He was tall and boyish-looking. He had the most beautiful face I’d ever seen.

We met waiting on the same checkout line at the grocery store. I noticed him before he noticed me. As soon as we looked at each other, it seemed obvious what was going to happen. First he complimented my cereal choice—Raisin Bran—and then he asked if I’d ever tried Raisin Bran Crunch. I shook my head no. I could feel how insanely I was blushing, and I was mortified at how easily I gave myself away.

He smiled a little and held up the purple-and-blue box in his basket.

I pretended not to notice the way the woman behind the register was smirking at us, like she was watching the opening scene of a romantic comedy. I agreed to meet him the next night. Our first date was in mid-October at a pub called the Weary Traveler.

I got there first. The pub was warm and dimly lit, and pretty full for a Thursday night. It was all dark wood inside, except for the tin ceiling, copper and embossed. The walls were covered with weird art, simple paintings of random people, and there were built-in shelves lined with old books and board games.

The waitress sat me at a table facing the door. When he walked in, he was wearing a T-shirt and no coat even though it was freezing outside. His hands were stuffed inside his pockets, his shoulders hunched, like he was cold. When he spotted me, he looked surprised to see me sitting there waiting for him. He raised his eyebrows and lifted one hand from his pocket to wave.
I got shy when I saw him. He was so much better-looking than me. It seemed uneven. I was wearing jeans and my favorite black sweater, my hair down.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said, sliding into the seat across from me. “I see you got started.” He nodded to my rum and Coke.

“I hope that’s okay.” I’d already drunk half of it.

“Of course. I should have texted saying I was running behind. I ended up cooking dinner for my mom, and the traffic coming from the other side of town was worse than I expected.”

“That’s nice of you,” I said. “That you cooked dinner for your mom.”

“I like to do it when I have the time. Do you cook?”

“Not really.”

“I didn’t really start till a few years ago. Nothing too fancy. I make a pretty decent quesadilla.”
He smiled then, and his whole face opened up—bright and sweet. His smile made him look like a kid.

I don’t remember much of what we talked about that night, except that he made me laugh a lot, and I could tell he was observant.

He spent a long time picking out a certain IPA on the menu but once it arrived he barely touched it. I worried this meant he wasn’t having a good time, but he didn’t seem in a rush, and he wasn’t doing the thing that some people did—glancing around to see who else might walk in. He didn’t pull out his phone once.

At some point during the evening he told me that his father had left his mother before he was born, but when Charlie was a teenager, he’d looked his father up on the internet and confronted him at his place of work—a pharmacy in Janesville, Wisconsin. When his father realized who Charlie was, Charlie leaned over the pharmacy counter and said, “Don’t worry, Dad, I’m not here to kill you.” Then he’d clapped his father on the shoulder and walked out. He reached over and clapped my shoulder, to show me how he’d done it. It was the first time he touched me. I could
feel where his hand had just been, reverberating on my shoulder, even after he’d pulled it away.

“Wow,” I said. “What was it like to see him?”

“One of his ears was really fucked up. It was kind of shriveled and pinched and there was this piece of dead skin growing out of it. I might have stayed longer but I couldn’t stand looking at his ear. Do you think that’s weird?” he asked me. “That what I remember most is his ear?”

“I don’t think it’s weird,” I said. “I feel like it’s usually those small things that you’re not expecting that hit you the hardest.”

He nodded vehemently. “That’s exactly it. The details.”

Then I told him that I hadn’t seen my mom since I was thirteen.

He sat back in his seat and looked at me, as if seeing me for the first time. “Is that why you write?”

It was startling, to be looked at like that. I felt like I could tell him anything, but I held back. I was already scared that I might never see him again. Nobody had ever asked me that question.
I shrugged. “I’m sure it has something to do with it.”

He didn’t try to kiss me at the end of the night, and at the time I took that to mean he didn’t like me. But he called me the next day. When I saw his name on my phone, I panicked and almost didn’t answer. I figured it must be an accident.

“I know I’m supposed to make you wait three days,” he said when I picked up, and the softness of his voice, his slightly monotone rasp, was so sexy to me that I could feel my whole body warm, as if a switch had been turned on. “So that you’ll think I’m busy,” he continued, “and maybe not that into you. But I’m more straightforward than that.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, thanks.”

“Are you free tonight?”

I told him I was busy—which was a lie—but free the night after.

“Great,” he said. “So what do you have going on? Another date?”

“No. I’m hanging out with my friends.”

“Must be nice, having friends to hang out with.”

I couldn’t tell if he was joking, but I laughed.

“On Saturday can I pick you up at eight?”

“Sure,” I said.

I was confused. I didn’t know things could be so easy. I didn’t know why he liked me. I also couldn’t fathom why he thought I had dates lined up. I hung up the phone and masturbated.

…

When he called back, not even an hour later, I was still lying on my bed thinking about him.

“Hi,” I said.

“I started to write you a text but it was getting really long, so I thought it would be better to call.”

I grew tense. “Okay.”

“I was wondering if you’d be up for hanging out at my place tomorrow.” He paused. “I know it’s a weird thing to ask since we just met, and I didn’t want you to think I was creepily trying to lure you over or anything. The thing is, I’m a little tight on money at the moment and I don’t love spending ten dollars on a beer at a bar when it’s pretty much the same amount to have a six-pack at home, you know? But, all of that to say, if you don’t feel comfortable, I totally understand, given that we’ve only known each other for, like, twenty-four hours.”

I sat up in bed. “Right. That’s fine. I feel comfortable.”

“How about I give you my address? So you can text it to your friends or look it up, just so you know I am who I say I am.”

He told me his address and I wrote it down on the inside cover of a book.

“My last name is Nelson, by the way.”

“Mine is Kempler,” I told him. “Are you going to look me up, too?”

“Should I?” he asked, and I could hear him smiling. “If I google you, am I going to find your mug shot or something?”

I laughed. “No.”

“Leah Kempler,” he said thoughtfully, as if testing out the sound of my name.

“Yeah?”

“Your voice is cute on the phone.”

I was sweating, even though I was alone in the room. “So is yours.”

The next night, I was ready and waiting for him by seven-thirty. He didn’t show up at eight like he said, but he texted saying he was running late. When he finally did call to say he was outside, it was after nine. I glanced at myself once more in the mirror. I was wearing my good jeans and another sweater—navy, ribbed, with a mock-turtleneck. This time my hair was up, for some variation. When I got into his car, it reeked of cigarettes. After thinking about him a lot for the past two days, I had forgotten what he looked like. Like studying something up close for too long, my memory of him had become blurry. But, sliding into the passenger seat, I was stunned all over again. He was beautiful. A mix between Johnny Depp and Jake Gyllenhaal. This time he was wearing a multicolored pullover fleece, like a dad.

“Hello,” I said.

“How’s it going?” His voice was even softer and less animated than it had been on the phone. Neither one of us knew what to say after that, and we made small talk; the kind that made me feel uninteresting. We didn’t laugh or seem to have anything in common this time. The drive was longer that I expected it to be, and at some point I realized that we were leaving the city and driving into the suburbs. When we pulled up to a large, split-level house with stone siding, a two-car garage attached, and a nice lawn out front, I was confused. “You live here?”
He nodded.

“By yourself?”

“I live with my mom and stepdad.”

I let the information settle. When he had invited me over, I’d assumed he lived alone. And he was pretty old.

“They’re asleep,” he said softly, when he led me inside. “We can go to the den.”

All the lights were off, but I could see that the house was very neat. There was no clutter. It smelled clean, too—like fresh laundry and lemon soap. The state of the house was in such opposition to the inside of Charlie’s car—with the stench of cigarettes, the layer of trash and empty soda cans and paper bags on the floor—that it was hard to connect the two spaces to the same person.

I followed him through a hallway and down three carpeted steps to a separate wing. The room he brought me to, the den, was brown—brown carpeting, brown wallpaper, brown, lumpy furniture. There was a flat-screen TV and video game consoles sprawled in front of it. On the far side of the room was a mini-fridge and a sink and a table with a few stools. “Make yourself at home,” Charlie said. “Do you want soda or something? Water? To be honest, I don’t really drink that much.”

It occurred to me then to be nervous. I hadn’t been, up until that moment. The room itself was creepy, and I didn’t know where I was. Nobody knew where I was. I hadn’t texted Charlie’s address to my friends like he’d suggested. I hadn’t wanted anyone to tell me not to go.
The only thing that made me feel slightly comforted was that I could feel the presence of the sleeping parents in some other part of the house.

I considered asking Charlie to drive me home, but I felt bad doing that. The drive had been a good thirty-five minutes. I figured the best thing to do was stay for a little while and then ask to be taken home in an hour or two. “I’ll have some water.” I smiled politely. “Thanks.”
He brought a glass of water and a can of A&W root beer from the fridge back to the couch where I had sat down.

“Want to watch something?” he asked.

“Okay.”

He turned on the TV. Underneath my fear, I was disappointed. This all seemed boring. Especially after the date we’d had two nights before. Laughing, sharing stories. And the way he’d called me the next day; how self-assured he’d sounded on the phone. I didn’t want him to be just some guy who lived with his parents who invited me over to watch TV. I wondered, sadly, if we were two losers on a bad date. He was too handsome to be a loser, though.

“You’re really quiet tonight,” he said, turning to me.

“I guess I’m nervous.”

“Why are you nervous?” He looked offended, or maybe, I thought, he was disappointed by me. My quietness. I wasn’t sure how things had become so strange so quickly between us.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “It’s just the beginning of getting to know each other, so . . .”

He seemed to consider this. “Sometimes I don’t always know how to, like . . .” He paused. “I get worried about overstepping my bounds.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, on our first date I really wanted to kiss you.”

“You did?”

“Of course.”

“Well.” I shrugged. “You should have.”

When I looked at him, a softness had come back into his eyes. He wasn’t disappointed with me, I realized; he was nervous, too.

“I’m going to try something.”

He kissed me then, and as soon as we were touching, I wasn’t scared anymore. I was no longer shy. We pulled each other closer. His hair and his clothes smelled like cigarettes. When he pulled off his fleece his hair stood straight up with static and I smoothed it down. Underneath he had on a plain white T-shirt, like the one he’d been wearing on our first date. He was so thin I could feel each of his ribs. He kissed softly, almost a little sleepily, like he wasn’t in a hurry. His lips were soft, and he tasted fresh and sour at the same time—like tobacco and toothpaste and coffee and kind of cool, like air. I’d never felt that way kissing anyone before. I desperately didn’t want it to end.

When I took my sweater off he pulled back for a moment and looked at me, his eyes moving from my eyes, down to my chest and hips. He smiled a little. “I thought there was something interesting going on underneath those sweaters of yours.”
I’d never felt so gorgeous in my life.

I woke up the next morning on the couch, which Charlie had pulled out into a sofa bed, him curled around me. We hadn’t had sex. We’d gotten naked and kissed. Touched each other a decent amount. Talked for a long time, and then fallen asleep together, in the same position we were waking up in now. Later in life, I’d come to think of this as not so different than fucking, but at the time, our restraint moved me. It was the kind of night you had with someone you liked—someone you wanted to see again.

When I opened my eyes, the room looked less menacing. There were sliding doors looking out onto a perfectly mowed backyard with lawn furniture. Sunlight poured into the room. Charlie’s arm, which had been crushed under my body for hours now, was olive-toned, almost gold, the hair on his skin fine and black. I turned over so I was facing him. He nestled his head against my breasts, tightening his arms around me. “I could live here forever,” he said, his voice morning-soft.

His words touched me somewhere deep and tender—almost painful—but all I said was, “I should get back soon. I’m meeting a friend at ten.”

For several moments he didn’t respond. Then he looked up and met my gaze. His eyes were pale blue and filled with light, his pupils massive. His eyelashes were thick and dark and longer than mine.

I brushed the back of my hand over his cheek and jaw. His face was rough with stubble that had been just a faint shadow the night before.

“Leah?” he said.

“Yes?”

“Can I see you again? Soon?”

I nodded. “Of course.”US