You and Me on Vacation

by Emily Henry

“God, I really hate having to do this. Why’s it so hard to meet people in real life?”

“Hey, that one guy did it in that one Stephen King novel,” I say.

“Vanilla isn’t a flavor.”

“We never did find out what he was ranting to no one about. Maybe he thought Jim Morrison was hovering on the water just in front of him.”

I don’t feel alone when I read his words. I don’t feel alone when I hold those Post-its in my hand and think about the person who wrote them.

“Alex …” It takes me a few seconds to go on: “I’ve never really felt alone since I met you. I don’t think I’ll ever feel truly alone in this world again as long as you’re in it.”

Sometimes it feels like I didn’t even exist before that. Like you invented me.”

“My point is, no one really knew me before you, Poppy. And even if … things change between us, you’ll never be alone, okay? I’ll always love you.”

“Can’t you just roll me down the mountain?”

“Ready,” I confirm, and Alex Nilsen sweeps me up into his arms and carries me down a motherfucking mountain. No. I really could not have invented him.

And here it comes, the moment that keeps slipping through my fingers, like it’s the game-changing detail in an instant replay I can’t seem to pause or slow down. We are just looking at each other. There are no hard edges to grab hold of, no distinct markers on this moment’s beginning or end, nothing to separate it from the millions just like it. But this, this is the moment I first think it. I am in love with you.

The thought is terrifying, probably not even true. A dangerous idea to entertain. I release my hold on it, watch it slip away.

“You won’t lose me,” he says, voice dimmed by the rain. “As long as you want me, I’m here.”

“I always want you, Alex,” I whisper. “Always.”

We’re magnets, trying to draw together even as we cradle the careful distance between us.

And, Poppy, when this happens again (which it will), do not go in so hard on the apology. You are not the master of your immune system and I can assure you that when your male colleagues have to cancel a trip, they show no indication that they feel they have personally wronged me. Don’t encourage people to blame you for something beyond your control. You are a fantastic writer, and we are lucky to have you.

“No, Poppy,” he says. “I came here to be with you.”

“She must’ve been pretty amazing,” I say, “to make a person like you.”

“You could have always looked,” he says in a low voice. “Just so you know.” “Well, you could’ve too,” I say. “Trust me,” he says. “I did.”

“Stop being impatient,” he teases. “I’ve waited twelve years. I want this to last.”

“God, how are you so good at this,” I say, and his laugh grates against my ear as he kisses behind it. “Because I know you,” he says tenderly, “and I remember what you sound like when you like something.”

“I could have sex with you until I die,” I pant. “Good,” he says,

And I don’t know what we’ve done, what chain reaction we might have just triggered, how this will all pan out, but right then I can’t think about anything else but the crush of love looping between us.

He laughs, touches my waist. “Because looking at you makes me think about last night, and call me old-fashioned, but I didn’t want to lie by the hotel pool with a raging hard-on all day.”

“I spent so much time trying not to want you.”

We stand there grinning for a few more seconds, our locked hands swinging back and forth between us.

Our hands go still between us. “I have what I want, Poppy.”

“I feel like a horny teenager.”

“Um.” I try to think of how to explain it. Years of undying love, occasional jealousy, missed opportunities, bad timing, other relationships, building sexual tension, a fight and the silence afterward, and the pain of living life without him. “Our Airbnb’s air-conditioning broke.”

I want him to stop worrying about other people and have something that’s just his, you know?”

Even if we never kissed, never said the words outright, we were keeping whole parts of our hearts for each other only.

If our friendship had cost him the woman he wanted to marry. I feel sick, ashamed by the thought.

“I don’t know how to love someone as much as I love you,”

and that’s the kind of tiny thing that feels so huge when it’s you.

I’m happy just because you exist, and that’s as much of my happiness as you have control over.”

My insides feel like an explosion of gold confetti.

We drive home in silence, and when we get there, Alex doesn’t shower, doesn’t even undress. We just get into bed and hold on to each other until we fall asleep.

I will have to do this again tomorrow and the next day and the next day.

I wanted to vanish that part of me and reappear fully formed in a new city, and that’s what I did.

His lips part for a moment, his green-gold eyes like storm-flooded rivers, brutal and rushing.

Growing up here, I was so fucking lonely, and I always felt like there was something wrong with me. But I told myself if I went somewhere else, it would be different. There’d be other people like me.”

“I needed those people, because I felt alone. I thought I had to run hundreds of miles away from here to find some place to belong. I spent my whole life thinking anyone outside my family who got too close, saw too much, wouldn’t want me anymore. The safest thing was those quick, serendipitous moments with strangers. That’s all I thought I could have.

There’s nothing in this whole world that I’ve built in my head that I’m not prepared to let go of to build a new one with you.

You’re home to me, Alex. And I think I’m that for you too.”

“I’m afraid of loving you for our entire lives, and then having to say goodbye. I’m afraid of you dying, and the world feeling useless.

“It’s fucking terrifying to be in love with each other.”

We are, I think. We’re home.

I didn’t know regular life could feel like this, like a vacation you don’t have to go home from.

“If you can still love me there,” he says, “I’ll know this is real.”

“Alex,” I say, “if I can’t love you at Times Square, then I don’t deserve you in a Used Bookstore.”