I Vid. I Write. I Fangirl.

The tension was as thick as the summer air hovering around them as they made their way back to the bus stop, and eventually, the airport.

They’d sat together on the bus and kept to their seats on the airplane too, which surprised her, given how Alex wouldn’t even talk to her except when absolutely necessary – do you know when the bus is supposed to arrive? Can I see the plane tickets? Etc. etc. Not even the handful of empty spots on the bus and the airplane made him budge.

Poppy knew the sudden distance between them was her fault. She knew she could undo it with one conversation. All she would have to do was take back what she’d said at the campsite. And the truth of it was, she wanted to so badly. Not just to get rid of the tension now residing between them but because Alex had been right.

She did have feelings for him. She was going to miss kissing him. And doing everything else they’d been doing.

She could get used to fucking Alex multiple times a day, get used to that look in his eye right before he kissed her, get used to the genuine compliments and the softness of his kisses and the way he held her, the vulnerability he’d admitted he showed to only her.

But it would only be a matter of time before everything odd about her would get on his nerves. Her outrageous outfits, her side quests, her favoring the saxophone in every song ever. Then there was her risk-taking, how loud she got for absolutely no reason at all, how antsy she got if she stayed in one place too long.

Their opposite traits would clash, and they’d burn up. He’d be the one to break up with her, and he’d feel really bad about it, give her those sad, puppy dog eyes of his, but in the end, he wouldn’t be able to take everything about her that was so different from him, that was so out of control.

He needed someone who was like him in every way. Someone like Sarah. And now that he definitely knew what he was doing in the bedroom, he could fill in the blonde, and they could get back together.

It would be like that one day of bliss between them that had changed everything hadn’t happened at all.

Her breath caught in her throat as she stared out the window in the back of the Uber while her imagination sped through that scenario. Envisioning how fast Alex would move on, and how she would stay heartbroken forever.

The car came to a stop, but Poppy didn’t move. She didn’t feel as tears tracked down her face or Alex calling her name. Not until she felt his fingers cover hers on the seat between them.

“What?” Poppy asked, looking down at their hands and completely missing Alex’s shocked expression when he saw her face.

His fingers left hers just as fast.

Poppy looked past Alex’s face to see that they were in front of her house.

“Oh.”

She opened her door, hardly aware that Alex had gotten out too or that the trunk had popped for her to get her luggage out. She circled ‘round the car though and got one of her things. She wanted to get both, wanted to prove she could do it all by herself and not need him so much.

But he got her bigger suitcase before she could stop him. On a faint sigh, she started walking towards the house, then opened the door that was rarely locked and walked inside.

“Hello,” she called out in a weak voice, but no one came out to greet them. “I saw a car, so they must be in the back.”

Alex set down her suitcase and walked over to her, wiping the tears from her face.

“I’m sorry, Poppy,” he said, his voice filled with regret. “I shouldn’t have given you the silent treatment on the way back. We won’t see each other for a year, and I…” He sighed. “I shouldn’t have let my bitterness over your decision control how I treated you.”

Poppy shrugged as a new tear traveled down her face, her bottom lip trembling. She didn’t meet his eyes.

“Don’t worry about it, Alex.”

Her bag slipped from her shoulder and plopped loudly on the floor.

“Is someone there?” a loud voice sounded from the back of the house.

“Oh, god. My mother.”

Poppy quickly wiped away the tears flooding her face now.

“I can’t let her see me like thi-”

“Here.”

And he quickly enveloped her in his arms, rubbing her back and tucking his face into her shoulder.

Poppy sniffled and gripped his back like a lifeline.

The approaching footsteps came to a stop when they reached the living room. Poppy felt her mom watching their emotional goodbye and felt the need to detach from Alex.

“Oh, honey,” Wanda said, as they finally separated. “You two can see each other soon. And hey, maybe Alex can even stay for lunch.”

“No, that’s-”

“I really should be going. My dad and brother are expecting me,” Poppy heard him say, crushing and relieving her at the same time.

“Oh, that’s a shame. Well, do come by sometime soon, Alex. You know we always love having you.”

“I will.”

Poppy looked up and saw his face, saw the thin, polite smile, and knew that he wouldn’t be stopping by.

“I’ll walk you out,” she said, and to her great relief, he didn’t say no.

“Good to see you again, Mrs. Wright,” he directed the goodbye over Poppy’s head, and Poppy felt dread fill her.

It was her turn next.

She swallowed hard and licked her lips, walking out the door as her mother returned Alex’s sentiment, adding that he should call her by her first name, as she always did.

The door shut behind them as they stood on the porch, their hands so close together at first that they almost touched.

“It was a good trip, Alex,” she said, bravely, shooting him her most valiant attempt at a smile.

He wiped away another of her tears.

“Yeah, it was.”

The urge to kiss him was almost overwhelming, but she knew it would only complicate things more than they already were, so with a strength she didn’t really feel, she tucked the urge away and hugged him instead. A tight, desperate hug that he returned gently, pressing a soft kiss to the top of her head.

“It’ll be okay, Poppy. We’ll be fine. I’ll text you. Maybe I’ll even come visit you in New York.”

She laughed through a sniffle and extracted herself from him.

“Yeah. Maybe.”

He smiled tentatively, running his hand down her arm.

“Goodbye, Poppy.”

Her hazel eyes flicked up to his blue ones, the goodbye shaking her to her core, because it felt so final.

She swallowed hard.

“Goodbye, Alex.”

And then he wasn’t beside her anymore. He was crossing the street and getting back in the car and being driven across town to his house. And she had this cold, nasty feeling inside her that she wasn’t going to see him again.

…

A week later, and Alex was still moping over Poppy.

Worse than that, they hadn’t talked at all, not even texted, since late that first evening they’d gotten back to Linfield.

When he first got home, David had practically pounced on him as soon as he walked in the door. His dad had given him a curt hello with a nod of his head, which was about as good as it was going to get with him. Surprisingly, it didn’t really bother him this time, because his head was so full of Poppy and how things had gone wrong and how he hadn’t really been able to fix it that his family’s reaction to him returning home just didn’t affect him one way or another.

David had wanted to know all about his vacation. Alex tried to make the first half of the vacation sound really detailed and interesting so he wouldn’t figure out there were some things he was leaving out. The skinny-dipping for one, the sex with Poppy for another.

He got lucky, and David was none the wiser that there were things he was leaving out.

After a while, Alex went up to his bedroom and promptly passed out. When he woke up, he half-expected Poppy to be beside him the way she’d been beside him in the tents every time he woke up during that last day of their trip. But of course, she wasn’t. His bed was hardly big enough for two people anyway, but that was beside the point.

He went downstairs, grabbed an apple and sat on the porch, thankful that no one else was out there to distract him from what he’d set out to do. As soon as he finished the fruit, he tossed the core into the grass and wiped his mouth, preparing for a run.

It was almost dark out, evening quickly approaching, and somehow, he found himself in front of Poppy’s house halfway through the run, not quite sure how he’d gotten there. He imagined himself throwing pebbles at her window that was currently lit up behind blinds and waiting for her to open it, to lean out, to look surprised or relieved or happy to see him. It would unveil like some rom-com or maybe something close to Romeo and Juliet’s balcony scene, and everything would be okay again. Maybe better than okay. Because maybe Poppy would have changed her mind.

But he shook his head, too scared of another round of rejection and certain that’s what would happen if he followed through with his romantic notions. He turned around and went home and showered and skipped dinner and collapsed on his bed.

Then he remembered how Poppy had been crying in his arms, and he reached for his phone and texted her, taking far too long to think of what to say before finally hitting send.

Hey, you ok?

It took her an hour for her to respond. He’d spent the time scrolling aimlessly, looking for things that might make her laugh if she was still sad. But every five minutes, he’d go back to their text message, checking to see if she’d responded and he just hadn’t been notified. She hadn’t.

Not for a full hour.

And then –

I’m ok

He frowned, sensing there had to be more to it than that. Then he saw her typing and waited impatiently for what she’d say.

Thx, Alex

Impulsively, he sent a smiley face. She didn’t respond to that, and he didn’t say anything else. Not that night, not the next day, not for a whole week.

He was scared if one of them didn’t say something soon, they wouldn’t say anything ever again. He’d saved a collection of memes that had made him think of her and wondered if she’d done the same. It hardly mattered, since neither of them sent any.

He started running two-to-three times a day just to get her out of his head. He kept ending up at her house, cycling scenarios through his head of how to fix all of this and run off with her into the sunset, but he never followed through, and so, today for the first time, he went a different route for both his runs. No point in going somewhere he wanted to be only to not go inside.

The next day, he was laying in bed in the late afternoon when his phone started to vibrate on his bedside table.

He scrambled so quickly to grab it in case it was a phone call that he nearly fell off the bed.

“Hello? Poppy?”

“Uh, no. It’s Sarah.”

Sarah.

The disappointment spreading through him was inevitable. He licked his lips and ran his other hand through his hair.

“Oh. Sarah, hi.”

He heard the relief in her voice when she continued to talk. Probably because he hadn’t sounded bitter, only surprised. He might’ve sounded bitter a week and a half ago, but not now. Now she wasn’t even a second thought. His brain was only Poppy-Poppy-Poppy.

“Hey,” she said, warmly. “Do you mind if I come up?”

His eyebrows narrowed, and he frowned.

“Come up?”

“Yeah. Look out your window.”

He froze for a beat too long, then stood up and peeked through the blinds on his window where he saw Sarah waving, still holding his phone to his ear. Immediately, he saw Poppy where Sarah was, coming to win him back, and his heart did a flip. That was, until he blinked and saw it was still Sarah.

He swallowed.

“Yeah, you can come up.”

She smiled.

“Be right there.”

He looked around his room. It was pretty tidy, despite all his moping for the past week and lack of regard for his usual need for order. He grabbed his laundry hamper and stuffed it in his closet, then waited for the sound of her footsteps on the stairs to announce her presence.

The knock on his door made him realize he hadn’t been listening close enough.

“Alex? It’s me.”

He licked his lips and swallowed, then opened the door.

“Shit, I’m still in love with you, Nance!”

Nancy froze, her fingers barely touching her sweater draped over a chair on the other side of Steve’s bedroom. After a beat, she pulled the fabric from the wood and slid the fuzzy cardigan through her arms, buttoning up to hide the tiny white bra underneath.

“Did you hear what I said?”

He didn’t sound mad. Irritated, maybe, and Nancy wasn’t sure if that was worse. Still, it was something she could work with.

She pursed her lips and turned to face him.

“I heard you.”

“Well?”

He gestured wildly with his arms, then let them fall against his jeans. She was grateful he was wearing those. If he was still only in his boxers, she might not be strong enough to turn him down again.

“What do you want me to say?”

“Well, saying it back would be nice,” he admitted aloud.

Her eyebrows shot up, and a scoff slipped out, to which she got a watery gaze in return.

“Sorry.”

She sighed.

“Look, Steve, I never promised anything when we started doing this. You have Kristen, I have my job across the country. We’ve done this exactly six times in the last six months. Waiting till Robin and Jonathan leave, and it’s just us, and then we pretend it didn’t happen for the next 29 days.”

“Maybe I don’t want to forget it anymore. Ever.”

“And what? We start ‘going steady’? Steve, this isn’t high school.”

“I know that. Do you think I forgot what happened in high school?”

She pursed her lips.

“You sure you don’t need a reminder?”

His eyes narrowed.

“I don’t want to live in the past.”

She stiffened.

“And is that what you think I’m doing? Shagging my ex-boyfriend twelve times a year to relive my youth?”

“Oh, now we’re at twelve. Yeah, that’s promising.”

She didn’t know when it happened, but he’d slowly come closer to her. They weren’t exactly having the friendliest conversation, and they were now both fully dressed, but something about him being in close proximity reminded her of what they’d just finished doing not long ago.

And then his hands were cupping her face and his lips were pressed against hers, and her arms somehow found their way wrapping around his back as he deepened the kiss more with each passing second.

“Wait, Steve,” she tried between kisses.

He kissed the corners of her lips, but didn’t seal them the way he had before, so she could still talk.

“What?”

And she heard the smile in his voice, and it made her smile too. Made her giddy. Made her want to forget the argument.

“We can’t just- We’re running in circles.”

“Well, why don’t we sit down then, so we don’t get dizzy?” he suggested.

She laughed.

“Steeeeve,” she whined.

Then, he did kiss her again.

And she let him. She gave in. She felt his fingers on the buttons of her sweater and then on her bare shoulders as the garment fell to the floor. She lifted his shirt up over his head and tossed it behind her with a smile as they walked back to the bed.

His jeans and her skirt were off by the time they sat down. Nancy went willingly when he pulled her onto his lap and kissed her some more, pulling her back with him as he scooted back to the head of the bed.

“It feels like we just did this,” he said, pointing out the irony.

She laughed again, the little angel on her shoulder glaring at her with a certainty that told her she could stop this. That she should stop this. They’d never done it two times in a row.

But that was before her brain short-circuited at the sound of Steve opening the top drawer of his bedside table to grab another condom, and she felt his boxers disappearing beneath her legs.

He flipped her suddenly, fitted the condom to his cock, and let him peel her panties off her long, slim legs, faintly smelling them before tossing them over his shoulder.

“Steve,” she deadpanned.

“What? You smell good. I want to remember it.”

She shook her head, then lifted her arms to him, and he came down to her.

“N-No,” she stammered, unexpectedly nervous. “Lift me up.”

“Uh…okay. Like this?” he asked, though he was more than experienced and definitely had to know the position she was going for, hovering in mid-air with him entering just beneath her.

She licked her lips.

“Mhmm.”

He released one of her legs to guide his cock into her entrance – wet, hot and ready for him – before lifting her leg back up into the crook of his elbow.

“Jesus, Nancy.”

And as much as she wanted to try the freeing position for more than three seconds, Nancy didn’t complain when after a few quick thrusts, Steve collapsed and released her to prop himself up and fuck into her over and over and over.

Nancy slid her hands up his chest and encircled his neck, her dainty legs hooking over his hips as he continued to drill in her, uncontrollably, like he was afraid she’d disappear if he slowed down.

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m here.”

And he slowed ever so slightly. Because there was something in her eyes that said she wouldn’t vanish. Not here, not when they were like this. Not when she was looking at him like this, and not when she was kissing and touching him and returning each thrust for thrust, bucking against his body as intently as he was hers.

“Steve!”

She clawed at his back as she came, and the sound of his name in pure ecstasy from her lips as he came too was euphoria at its finest.

“I love you, Nance,” he whispered, tucking his face into her neck as he collapsed.

She sighed, but she didn’t argue his point again.

I love you, too, she thought.

The confession was safe enough in her head. As long as it didn’t do something crazy like reach her heart and slip past her lips when she last expected it.

So, instead, she said, “Okay, Steve,” and patted his back seconds before he dozed off in her arms, half-on her and half-off.