People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry (best story books to read .TXT) 📕

Each new email burns its exclamation points into my mind, and I would be afraid to meet Dani, if not for the fact that she signs every email with xoxo, which I find so endearing that I’m confident we’ll like her a lot. Or I’ll like her a lot and Alex will be terrified.

Either way, I’ve never been more excited for a trip in my life.

In Sweden, there’s a hotel made entirely of ice, called (for some mysterious reason) Icehotel. It’s the kind of place Alex and I could never have afforded on our own, and all morning leading up to the pitch meeting with Swapna, I was sweating profusely at my desk—not normal sweat, but the horrible reeking kind that comes with anxiety. It’s not like Alex wouldn’t have gone along with another hot beachside vacation, but ever since I found out about Icehotel, I knew it would be the absolute perfect surprise for him.

I pitch the article as a “Cool Down for Summer” feature, and Swapna’s eyes light up approvingly.

“Inspired,” she says, and I see a few of the other, more established writers mouthing the word to one another. I haven’t been there long enough to notice her using that word, but I know how she is about trends, so I figure inspired is diametrically opposed to trendy in her mind.

She is fully on board. Just like that, I am cleared to spend way too much money. I can’t technically buy Alex meals or plane tickets or even admission to the Viking museum, but when you’re traveling with R+R, doors open for you, bottles of champagne you didn’t order float out to your table, chefs drop by with something “a little extra,” and life gets a bit shinier.

There’s also the matter of the photographer who will be traveling with us, but so far everyone I’ve worked with has been pleasant, if not fun, and every bit as independent as I am. We meet up, we plan shots, we part ways, and though I haven’t worked with the new photographer I’m paired with—we’ve been caught on opposite schedules of in-office days—Garrett, the other new staff writer, says Photographer Trey’s great, so I’m not worried.

Alex and I text incessantly in the weeks leading up to the trip, but never about the trip itself. I tell him I’m taking care of everything, that it’s all a surprise, and even if the lack of control is killing him, he doesn’t complain.

Instead he texts about his little black cat, Flannery O’Connor. Shots of her in shoes and cupboards and sprawled on the top of bookshelves.

She reminds me of you, he says sometimes.

Because of the claws? I ask. Or because of the teeth or because of the fleas, and every time, no matter what comparison I try to draw, he just writes back tiny fighter.

It makes me feel fluttery and warm. It makes me think about him pulling the hood of my sweatshirt tight around my face and grinning at me through the chilly dark, murmuring under his breath: cutie.

In the last week before we leave, I get either a horrible cold or the worst bout of summer allergies I can remember. My nose is constantly stuffed up and/or dripping; my throat feels scratchy and tastes sour; my whole head feels clogged with pressure; and every morning, I’m wiped out before the day even begins. But I have no fever, and a quick trip to urgent care informs me that I don’t have strep throat, so I do my best not to slow down. There is a lot to get done before the trip, and I do it all while coughing profusely.

Three days before we leave, I have a dream that Alex tells me he got back together with Sarah, that he can’t take the trip anymore.

I wake up feeling sick to my stomach. All day I try to get the dream out of my head. At two thirty, he sends me a picture of Flannery.

Do you ever miss Sarah? I write back.

Sometimes, he says. But not too much.

Please don’t cancel our trip, I say, because this dream is really, really messing with me.

Why would I cancel our trip? he asks.

I don’t know, I say. I just keep getting nervous that you’re going to.

The Summer Trip is the highlight of my year, he says.

Mine too, I tell him.

Even now that you get to travel all the time? You’re not sick of it?

I could never get sick of it, I say. Don’t cancel.

He sends me another picture of Flannery O’Connor sitting in his already packed suitcase.

Tiny fighter, I write.

I love her, he says, and I know he’s talking about the cat, obviously, but even that makes that fluttery, warm feeling come alive under my skin.

I can’t wait to see you, I say, feeling suddenly like saying this very normal thing is bold, risky even.

I know, he writes back, it’s all I can think about.

It takes me hours to fall asleep that night. I just lie in bed with those words running through my mind on repeat, making me feel like I have a fever.

When I wake up, I realize that I actually did. That I still do. That my throat feels more swollen and raw than before, and my head is pounding, and my chest is heavy, and my legs ache, and I can’t get warm no matter how many blankets I’m under.

I call in sick hoping to sleep it off before my flight the next afternoon, but by late that night, I know there’s no way I’m getting on that airplane. I have a fever of one hundred and two.

Most of the things we have booked are now close enough that they’re nonrefundable. Wrapped in blankets and shivering in my bed, I draft an email on my phone to Swapna, explaining the situation.

I’m unsure what to do. Unsure if this will somehow get me fired.

If I didn’t feel so horrible, I’d probably