Page 119 of People We Meet on Vacation

Alex coughs. “I’m sorry about last night. I know I started it all and—it shouldn’t have happened like that.”

“Seriously,” I say. “It’s not a big deal.”

“I know you’re not over Trey,” he murmurs, looking away. “I shouldn’t have...”

Would it make things better or worse to admit how little Trey crossed my mind for weeks before this trip? That last night I hadn’t been thinking about anyone but Alex?

“It’s not your fault,” I promise. “We both let it happen, and it doesn’t have to mean anything, Alex. We’re just two friends who kissed once while drunk.”

He studies me for a few seconds. “All right.” He doesn’t look like he’s all right. He looks like he’d rather be at a saxophone convention with any number of serial killers right now.

My heart squeezes painfully. “So we’re good?” I say, willing it to be so.

Bernard reappears then with a story about a heavily toilet-papered airport bathroom he once visited—on the Sunday of Mother’s Day, for those who want theexactdate—and Alex and I barely look at each other.

When I get home, something keeps me from texting him.

He’ll textme, I think.Then I’ll know we’re okay.

After a week of silence, I send him a casual text about a funny T-shirt I see on the subway, and he writes backhabut nothing else. Two weeks later, when I ask,Are you okay?he just replies,Sorry. Been really busy. You okay?

For sure, I say.

Alex stays busy. I get busy too, and that’s it.

I always knew there was a reason we kept a boundary up. We’d let our libidos get the best of us and now he couldn’t even look at me, text me back.

Ten years of friendship flushed down the drain just so I could know what Alex Nilsen tastes like.

34

This Summer

I CAN’T STOP THINKINGabout that first kiss. Not our first kiss on Nikolai’s balcony but the one two years ago, in Croatia. All this time, that memory has looked one way in my mind, but now it looks entirely different.

I’d thought he regretted what happened. Now I understood he regrettedhowit happened. On a drunk whim, when he couldn’t be sure of my intentions. WhenIwasn’t sure of my intentions. He’d been afraid it hadn’t meant anything, and then I’d pretended it hadn’t.

All this time I’d thought he’d rejected me. And he’d thought I’d been cavalier with him and his heart. It made me ache to think of how I’d hurt him, and worst of all, maybe he was right.

Because even if that kiss hadn’t meant nothing to me, I also hadn’t thought it through. Not the first time, and not this time either. Not like Alex had.

“Poppy?” Swapna says, leaning around my cubicle. “Do you have a moment?”

I’ve been at my desk, staring at this website for tourism in Siberia, for upwards of forty-five minutes. Turns out Siberia is actually sort of beautiful. Perfect for a self-imposed exile if one should have need of such a thing. I minimize the site. “Um, sure.”

Swapna glances over her shoulder, checking who else is in today, parked at their desks. “Actually, are you up for a walk?”

It’s been two weeks since I got back from Palm Springs, and it’s technically too early for fall weather, but we’ve got a random pop of it today in New York. Swapna grabs her Burberry trench and I grab my vintage herringbone one and we set off toward the coffee shop on the corner.

“So,” she says. “I can’t help but notice you’ve been in a funk.”

“Oh.” I thought I’d been doing an okay job hiding how I was feeling. For one thing, I’ve been exercising for, like, four hours a night, which means I sleep like a baby, wake up still exhausted, and trudge through my days without too much brainpower left for wondering when Alex might answer one of my phone calls or call me back.

Or why this job feels as tiring as bartending back in Ohio did. I can’t make anything add up how it should anymore. All day long, I hear myself saying this same phrase, like I’m desperate to get it out of my body even as I feel incapable: I am having a hard time.

As mild as that statement is—every bit as mild asI can’t help but notice you’ve been in a funk—it sears to my center every time I hear it.

I am having a hard time, I think desperately a thousand times a day, and when I try to probe for more information—A hard time with what?—the voice replies,Everything.

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