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

Go back to the doctor first thing in the morning, Alex tells me.

Maybe it’s just peaking, I write. Maybe you can fly out on time and I can meet you in a couple days.

You shouldn’t be feeling worse this late into a cold, he says. Please go to the doctor, Poppy.

I will, I write. I’m so sorry.

Then I do cry. Because if I don’t make it on this trip, there’s a good chance I won’t see Alex for a year. He’s so busy with his MFA and teaching, and I’m rarely home now that I’m working for R+R, and in Linfield even less. This Christmas, Mom was excited to tell me, she convinced Dad to come to the city. My brothers even agreed to come for a day or two, something they insisted they would never do once they moved to California (Parker to pursue writing for TV in L.A. and Prince to work for a video game developer in San Francisco), as if upon signing their leases they’d also committed to a die-hard rivalry between the two states.

Whenever I’m sick, I just wish I were in Linfield. Lying in my childhood bedroom, its walls papered in vintage travel posters, the pale pink quilt Mom made while she was pregnant with me pulled up tight around my chin. I wish she were bringing me soup and a thermometer, and checking that I was drinking water, keeping up on ibuprofen to lower my fever.

For once, I hate my minimalist apartment. I hate the city sounds bouncing off my windows at all hours. I hate the soft gray linen bedding I picked out and the streamlined imitation Danish furniture I’ve started to accumulate since landing my Big-Girl Job, as Dad calls it.

I want to be surrounded in knickknacks. I want floral-patterned lampshades and mismatched throw pillows on a plaid couch, its back draped in a scratchy afghan blanket. I want to shuffle up to an old off-white fridge covered in hideous magnets from Gatlinburg and Kings Island and the Beach Waterpark, with drawings I made as a kid and flash-blanched family photos, and to see a cat in a diaper stalk past only to bump into a wall it did not see.

I want not to be alone, and for every breath not to take an immense effort.

At five in the morning, Swapna replies to my email.

This sort of thing happens. Don’t beat yourself up about it. You’re right about the refunds, though—if you’d like to let your friend use the accommodations you’ve booked, feel free. Forward me what you had in the way of itinerary again, and we’ll go ahead and send Trey to shoot. You can follow when you’re well again.

And, Poppy, when this happens again (which it will), do not go in so hard on the apology. You are not the master of your immune system and I can assure you that when your male colleagues have to cancel a trip, they show no indication that they feel they have personally wronged me. Don’t encourage people to blame you for something beyond your control. You are a fantastic writer, and we are lucky to have you.

Now get yourself to a doctor and enjoy some true R&R. We’ll speak about next steps when you’re on the mend.

I’d probably be more relieved if not for the haze superimposed over my entire apartment and the extreme discomfort of simply existing.

I screenshot the email and text it to Alex. Go have fun!!! I write. I’ll try to meet you for the second half!

By then, the very thought of getting out of bed makes me feel dizzy. I set my phone aside and close my eyes, letting sleep rush up to swallow me like a well reaching up, up, up around me as I drop through it.

It’s not a peaceful sleep, but a cold, glitching kind, where dreams and sentences start over, again and again, interrupting themselves before they can get off the ground. I toss in bed, waking long enough to register how cold I am, how uncomfortable both the bed and my body have become, only to tumble back into restless dreams.

I dream about a giant black cat with hungry eyes. It chases me in circles until it’s too hard to breathe, too hard to keep going, and then it pounces, jolting me awake for a few fitful seconds, only to start again the moment I shut my eyes.

I should go to the doctor, I think on occasion, but I’m sure I’m unable to sit up.

I don’t eat. I don’t drink. I don’t even get up to pee.

The day spins past until I open my eyes to the yellowy-gold light of sunset glaring off my bedroom window, and when I blink, it’s changed to a deep periwinkle, and there’s a pounding in my head so real it makes a thumping sound that sends shock waves through my body.

I roll over, pull a pillow over my face, but that doesn’t stop it.

It’s getting louder. It starts to sound like my name, the way that sounds sometimes transform into music when you’re so tired you’re half dreaming.

Poppy! Poppy! Poppy, are you home?

My phone clatters on the bedside table, vibrating. I ignore it, let it ring out. It starts again, and after that, a third time, so I roll over and try to read the screen despite the way the world seems to be melting, like a swirl of duo-toned ice creams twirling around each other.

There are dozens of messages from ALEXANDER THE GREATEST, but the last one reads, I’m here! Let me in!

The words have no meaning. I’m too confused to build a context for them, too cold to care. He’s calling me again, but I’m not sure I can speak. My throat feels too tight.

The pounding starts again, the voice calling my name, and the fog lifts just enough for all the pieces to snap together into perfect clarity.

“Alex,” I mumble.

“Poppy! Are you in there?” he’s shouting on the other side of the