Red, White & Royal Blue

by Casey McQuiston

Should I tell you that when we’re apart, your body comes back to me in dreams? That when I sleep, I see you, the dip of your waist, the freckle above your hip, and when I wake up in the morning, it feels like I’ve just been with you, the phantom touch of your hand on the back of my neck fresh and not imagined? That I can feel your skin against mine, and it makes every bone in my body ache? That, for a few moments, I can hold my breath and be back there with you, in a dream, in a thousand rooms, nowhere at all?

One of my favorite passages from their emails. Part of why I chose to incorporate their emails was so that Henry had a chance to show that he is actually a decent writer (not just a rich guy who thinks he’s a poet) and so that he could, in his own way, communicate to Alex that he loved him when he couldn’t outright say it. This paragraph has “I love you” written all over it, but he’s nowhere close to telling Alex to his face. The emails are a safe space for the two of them to be alone and vulnerable together, and because of that, we get to see a side of Henry we otherwise wouldn’t.