I would go anywhere for you, Alex.

It’s easier than saying, I have missed you, beautiful smile. It’s so good to see you, strong arms and legs. Thank you, freakishly taut belly, for feeding this person I love so much.

He stares at me through the dark of the cabin for a few seconds. Then his hand relaxes into mine, his warm, rough fingers settling. It gives me a surprising thrill to hold his hand

But the other night—it sounds so ridiculous, but we were looking at Tinder, and you said you’d swipe right on me—and that’s the kind of tiny thing that feels so huge when it’s you. I lay awake trying to figure out what you meant for hours that night.

We’re not on the beat, but it doesn’t matter. It’s just us.

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.”

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.

I love you so much it sometimes hurts.

God, Poppy, of course all of it was because of you. Everything is because of you. Everything.

Back when Alex and I were close, we hugged all the time; but that was then, when I knew him. When he was comfortable with me.

I’d never been that girl who’d felt entirely alone, misunderstood, and I’d always been this one: known, loved, wholly accepted by Alex Nilsen.

It’s a millisecond that belongs to that other five percent—the what-if. If I leaned forward and kissed him over his shoulder, slipped his bottom lip between my teeth, twisted my hands into his hair until he turned himself around and pulled me into his chest.

That crush of happiness, that feeling that this is what life’s about: being somewhere beautiful, with someone you love.

He stares at me through the dark of the cabin for a few seconds. Then his hand relaxes into mine, his warm, rough fingers settling. It gives me a surprising thrill to hold his hand

“When in Rome!” and ever since, whenever one of us had waffled about buying something, the other had insisted, “When in Rome!”

“You love me,” I point out, the tiniest bit defensive. He loops an arm around my shoulders and looks down at me, another small, contained smile on his full lips. His face is a sieve, only letting out the smallest amount of expression at a time. “I know that,” he says.

Maybe that’s why he can handle the public affection. Maybe, like me, when we’re together he feels like no one else is there, like they’re phantoms we dreamed up as set dressing.

I would rather have one tiny sliver of him forever than have all of him for just a moment and know I’d have to relinquish all of it when we were through.

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.”