then you had sex with me, and you told me you loved me and came to my brother’s wedding, because you needed a break from your real life.”
“Alex, of course not,” I say, reaching for him.
He steps back from me, eyes low. “Please don’t touch me right now, Poppy. I’m trying to think, okay?”
“Think about what?” I ask, emotion thickening my voice. I don’t understand what’s happening, how I’ve hurt him or how to fix it. “Why are you so upset right now?”
“Because I meant it!” he says, finally meeting my eyes.
A pulse of pain shoots through my stomach. “So did I!” I cry.
“I meant it, and I knew I meant it,” he says. “It wasn’t an impulse. I knew for years that I loved you, and I thought about it from every single angle and knew what I wanted before I ever kissed you. We went two years without talking, and I thought about you every day and I gave you the space I thought you wanted, and that whole time I asked myself what I’d be willing to do, to give up, if you decided you wanted to be with me too. I spent that whole time alternating between trying to move on and let you go, so you could be happy, and looking at job postings and apartments near you, just in case.”
“Alex.” I shake my head, force the words past the knot in my throat. “I had no idea.”
“I know.” He rubs at his forehead as he closes his eyes. “I know that. And maybe I should have told you. But, fuck, Poppy, I’m not some water taxi driver you met on vacation.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demand. When he opens his eyes, they’re so teary I start to reach for him again until I remember what he said: please don’t touch me right now.
“I’m not a vacation from your real life,” he says. “I’m not a novelty experience. I’m someone who’s been in love with you for a decade, and you should never have kissed me if you didn’t know that you wanted this, all the way. It wasn’t fair.”
“I want this,” I say, but even as I say it, a part of me has no idea what that means.
Do I want marriage?
Do I want to have kids?
Do I want to live in a seventies quad-level in Linfield, Ohio?
Do I want any of the things that Alex craves for his life?
I haven’t thought any of that through, and Alex can tell.
“You don’t know that,” Alex says. “You just said you don’t know, Poppy. I can’t leave my job and my house and my family just to see if that cures your boredom.”
“I didn’t ask you to do that, Alex,” I say, feeling desperate, like I’m grappling for purchase and realizing everything under me is made of sand. He’s slipping through my grip for the last time, and there will be no packing this all back into form.
“I know,” he says, rubbing the lines in his forehead, wincing. “God, I know that. It’s my fault. I should’ve known this was a bad idea.”
“Stop,” I say, wanting so badly to touch him, aching at having to settle for clenching my hands into fists. “Don’t say that. I’m figuring things out, okay? I just . . . I need to figure some things out.”
The gate agent calls for group six to start boarding and the last few stragglers line up.
“I have to go,” he says, without looking at me.
My eyes cloud up with tears, my skin hot and itchy like my body’s shrinking around my bones, becoming too tight to bear. “I love you, Alex,” I get out. “Doesn’t that matter?”
His eyes cut toward me, dark, fathomless, full of hurt and want. “I love you too, Poppy,” he says. “That’s never been our problem.” He glances over his shoulder. The line has almost disappeared.
“We can talk about this when we’re home,” I say. “We can figure it out.”
When Alex looks back at me, his face is anguished, his eyes red ringed. “Look,” he says gently. “I don’t think we should talk for a while.”
I shake my head. “That’s the last thing we should do, Alex. We have to figure this out.”
“Poppy.” He reaches for my hand, takes it lightly in his. “I know what I want. You need to figure this out. I’d do anything for you, but—please don’t ask me to if you’re not sure. I really—” He swallows hard. The line is gone. It’s time