You and Me on Vacation

by Emily Henry

Everything about her is sharp and pointed and smart, from her slicked-back high-fashion bob to her studded Alexander Wang pumps. Her winged eyeliner could slice through an aluminum can, and her emerald eyes could crush it afterward.

“I’m not being cute,” I promise her, “and I’m definitely not being whimsical.” The arch of her eyebrow deepens. “Are you sure? Because you’re prone to both, babe.” I roll my eyes. “You just mean I’m short and wear bright colors.” “No, you’re tiny,” she corrects me, “and wear loud patterns. Your style is, like, 1960s Parisian bread maker’s daughter bicycling through her village at dawn, shouting Bonjour, le monde whilst doling out baguettes.”

“Millennial ennui.” “Is that a thing?” I ask. “Not yet, but if you repeat it three times, there’ll be a Slate think piece on it by tonight.”

sometimes, when you lose your happiness, it’s best to look for it the same way you’d look for anything else.” “By groaning and hurling couch cushions around?” I guess. “By retracing your steps,” Rachel says. “So, Poppy, all you have to do is think back and ask yourself, when was the last time you were truly happy?” The problem is, I don’t have to think back. Not at all. I know right away when I was last truly happy. Two years ago, in Croatia, with Alex Nilsen.

“So what are you here for?” I ask. His brow furrows. “Here for?” “Yeah, you know,” I say, “like, I’m here to meet a wealthy oil baron in need of a much younger second wife.” That blank stare again. “What are you studying?” I clarify.

“Linfield is the khakis of Midwestern cities,” I say. “Comfortable,” he says, “durable.” “Naked from the waist down.”

By the end of our first road trip home I knew enough about him to understand that his walking into our tiny house filled to the brim with knickknacks and dusty picture frames and dog dander would be like a vegetarian taking a tour of a slaughterhouse.

Touching is such second nature to me that once I accidentally hugged my dishwasher repairman when I let him out of the apartment, at which point he graciously told me he was married, and I congratulated him.

“You know how to use portrait mode,” I say, still aghast. “Ha ha.” “How do you know how to use portrait mode? Did your grandson teach you that when he was home for Thanksgiving?” “Wow,” he deadpans. “I’ve missed this so much.”

“It aspires to live long enough to see the end of all human suffering,” I add. “This car,” Alex says, “isn’t going to live long enough to see the end of the Star Wars franchise.” “But who among us will?” I say.

Before Alex, my family was the only place I belonged, but even with them, I was something of a loose part, that baffling extra bolt IKEA packs with your bookcase, just to make you sweat.

“Where are you right now?” I stick my hand out the window, grasping at the wind. “Wandering the halls of East Linfield High to a chant of Porny Poppy! Porny Poppy!” “Fine,” Alex says gently. “I won’t make you visit my classroom to teach Billy Joel Radio History. But just so you know …” He looks at me, face serious, voice deadpan. “If any of my juniors called you Porny Poppy, I’d fucking waste them.” “That has to be,” I say, “the hottest thing anyone has ever said to me.

“I bet so many students have crushes on you.” “One girl told me I look like Ryan Gosling …” “Oh my god.” “… if he got stung by a bee.” “Ouch,” I say. “I know,” Alex agrees. “Tough but fair.” “Maybe Ryan Gosling looks like you if he was left outside to dehydrate, did you ever think of that?”

He shook his head and pulled me into his chest, squeezing me, lifting me up into him like he planned to absorb me. “I love you,” he said, and kissed my head. “And if you want, we can die alone together.”

As soon as we walked into the building, with its opulent, rounded ceilings and gilded light fixtures and golden-edged booths, I said, “No regrets,” and forced Alex to high-five me. “Giving high fives makes me feel like my insides have poison ivy,” he murmured. “Might as well get that out of the way in case you’re about to find out you’re allergic to seafood.”

After the bird show we head to the petting zoo, where we stand among a coterie of five-year-olds and use special brushes to comb Nigerian dwarf goats. “I misread that sign as ghosts, not goats, and now I’m just disappointed,” Alex says under his breath.

“You can hardly tell we’re inside a dinosaur,” Alex jokingly complains. “Right? Where are the giant vertebrae? Where are the blood vessels and tail muscles?” “This is not getting a favorable Yelp review,” Alex mutters,

“Alex.” I reach out for him with both hands, pull him in against me. His arms come around me, and his head bows until he’s a giant question mark, hanging over me. “It’s not your job to make me happy, okay? You can’t make anyone happy. I’m happy just because you exist, and that’s as much of my happiness as you have control over.”

“Can you just do me one favor?” I ask. He knots his hands against my spine. “Hm?” “Only hold my hand when you want to.” “Poppy,” he says, “there may come a day when I no longer need to be touching you at all times, but that day is not today.”

“I know what I said. But I’m telling you now, I remember it all.” “Some would say that makes you a liar.” “No,” he says, “what it makes me is someone who was embarrassed to still remember exactly what you were wearing the first time I saw you, and what you ordered once at McDonald’s in Tennessee, and who needed to preserve some small measure of dignity.” “Aw, Alex,” I coo, teasing even as my heart flutters happily. “You forfeited your dignity when you showed up to O-Week in khakis.”

Beside me, Alex lets out an anxious breath, and I wheel toward him. “I’m sorry! I just made that weird. Sorry.” “No.” He slips his hand back into mine. “Actually, I think I just developed a fetish that’s specifically you delivering hard truths to my father.” “In that case,” I say, “let’s go have some words with him about that mustache.”

We take seats at the kids’ table, which Bryce’s wife, Angela, thanks me tipsily for about a hundred times after the meal is over. “I love my kids, but sometimes I just want to sit down to dinner and talk about something other than Peppa Pig.” “Huh,” I say, “we mostly talked about Russian literature.”

Maybe things can always get better between people who want to do a good job loving each other. Maybe that’s all it takes.

This time everything is different between us. Softer, gentler, slower. We take our time, say nothing that can’t be said with our hands and mouths and limbs. I love you, he tells me in a dozen different ways, and I say it back every time.

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.