Page 124 of People We Meet on Vacation

Right.

I sort of forgot that any random adult can’t walk into a high school anymore. Definitely for the best, in every situation except this one. I knock on the door until a beaky resource officer with a halo of gray hair approaches and cracks the door a few inches. “Can I help you?”

“I’m here to see someone,” I say. “A teacher—Alex Nilsen?”

“Name?” he asks.

“Alex Nilsen—”

“Your name,” the officer says, correcting me.

“Oh, Poppy Wright.”

He closes the door, disappearing for a second into the front office. A moment later, he returns. “Sorry, ma’am, we don’t have you in our system. We can’t let in unregistered guests.”

“Could you just get him, then?” I try.

“Ma’am, I can’t go track down—”

“Poppy?” someone says behind him.

Oh, wow!I think at first.Someone recognizes me! What luck!

And then the pretty, lean brunette steps up to the door. My stomach bottoms out.

“Sarah. Wow. Hi.” I’d forgotten that I could potentially run into Sarah Torval here. Borderline monumental oversight.

She glances back at the resource officer. “I’ve got it, Mark,” she says, and steps outside to talk to me, folding her arms across herself. She’s wearing a cute purple dress and dark denim jacket, large silver earrings dancing from her ears; she has just a splash of freckles across her nose.

As ever, she is completely adorable in that kindergarten-teacher way. (Despite being a ninth-grade teacher, of course.)

“What are you doing here?” she asks, notunkindly, though definitely not warmly.

“Oh, um. Visiting my parents.”

She arches a brow and glances at the redbrick building behind her. “At the high school?”

“No.” I push the hair out of my eyes. “I mean, that’s what I’m doinghere. But what I’m doinghereis... I was hoping, I mean... I wanted to talk to Alex?”

Her eye roll is minimal, but it stings.

I swallow an apple-sized knot. “I deserve that,” I say. I take abreath. This won’t be fun, but it’s necessary. “I was really careless about everything, Sarah. I mean, my friendship with Alex, everything I expected from him while you were together. It wasn’t fair to you. I know that now.”

“Yeah,” she says. “Youwerecareless about it.”

We’re both silent for a beat.

Finally, she sighs. “We all made some bad decisions. I used to think that if you just went away, all my problems would be solved.” She uncrosses her arms and recrosses them the other way. “And then you did—you basically disappeared after we went to Tuscany, and somehow, that was even worse for my relationship.”

I sway from foot to foot. “I’m sorry. I wish I’d understood what I was feeling before it had a chance to hurt anyone.”

She nods to herself, examines the perfectly painted toenails poking out of her tan leather sandals. “I wish so too,” she says. “Or that he had. Or thatIhad. Really ifanyof us had really known how you two felt about each other, it would’ve saved me a lot of time and pain.”

“Yeah,” I agree. “So you and he aren’t...”

She lets me wait for a few seconds, and I know it’s not an accident. A semidevilish smile curls up her pink lips. “We aren’t,” she relents. “Thank God. But he’s not here. He already left. I think he was talking about getting away for the weekend.”

“Oh.” My heart sinks. I glance back at my parents’ minivan parked in the half-empty lot. “Well, thanks anyway.”

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