Julian

Julian is Poppy Wright’s boyfriend during her life in Cincinnati, an artist in progress whose open-ended approach to work, travel, and commitment gives their relationship both its freedom and its uncertainty. He is tender and physically attentive with Poppy, but also unreliable in ways that trouble Alex Nilsen; the contrast makes Julian a point of friction between the two old friends as well as a relationship Poppy insists is special on its own terms.

Identity and Background

Julian is a college dropout who left the University of Cincinnati after one year, where he had been studying architectural design. His stated ambition is to work as an artist. He shows paintings at do-it-yourself venues around Cincinnati and shares an old white house with three other painters. The house, its porch, and the company of people talking about their dreams remind Poppy of Buck and the transients she knew in Tofino. Sitting there after a few beers, while the others smoke weed or clove cigarettes, can bring on a mixture of happiness and sadness in her: Julian’s world feels welcoming, but it also sharpens her nostalgia.

For income, Julian works at a UPS warehouse on the edge of town. Painting can absorb him so completely that he forgets to eat or drink. When he meets Poppy afterward, he is often in a bad mood for a few minutes; once he has a snack, however, he softens into the sweet, sensitive boyfriend she knows. His physical attentiveness is striking to her: his kisses and touches can make her imagine that what they are doing would look beautiful on film. She considers suggesting that they set up a camera and take pictures, then feels embarrassed at having entertained the idea.

Temperament and Everyday Life

Poppy presents Julian as someone who readily says yes to experience. When he visits her at work, he finishes drinks customers have left behind. He has tried most drugs once, with heroin as the exception, and is eager to take trips: weekends to Red River Gorge or Hocking Hills, or longer journeys to New York City on an overnight bus that costs sixty dollars round trip and often has no bathroom. He and Poppy share flexible schedules, in part because both have left college, which makes it easy for them to travel or spend time together without much advance structure.

That openness has a less dependable side. Julian can be late, and there are stretches when Poppy does not hear from him for days, followed by weeks in which they are almost constantly together. His energy and availability therefore arrive in bursts rather than as a steady routine. The same lack of conventional structure that allows for spontaneous trips also leaves the relationship difficult for an observer to read: Julian’s long absences and concentrated periods of closeness coexist without, in Poppy’s account, ending their connection.

Relationship with Poppy

Julian is the second person Poppy has slept with, though he does not know this. He never asked, and she believes that if he had understood how inexperienced she was, he might have been too alarmed by the possibility that she would become attached to him. She acknowledges that she probably has become attached, while suspecting that Julian may have become attached as well. For the time being, their frequent companionship is enough for her, even without a declaration that settles what the relationship will become.

Their first kiss takes place outside Julian’s favorite bar, a grungy downtown spot with a bicycle-repair shop in the back. Afterward, he tells Poppy that he does not want to marry or have children. She answers that she does not want to marry him either, and he laughs gruffly before kissing her again. The exchange establishes a shared rejection of those particular future plans, but it does not amount to an agreed account of their feelings or a guarantee against deeper attachment. Their intimacy is sensual and affectionate, while the terms they have named remain deliberately limited.

Poppy is careful about contraception and says she and Julian are always careful, or at least she is. Her boss’s later concern that Poppy might be pregnant follows an incident at the bar, not an actual pregnancy: Poppy is clear that she was not pregnant. This distinction matters to the portrait of the relationship. Julian’s casual approach to some parts of life coexists with Poppy’s own vigilance, and their closeness does not mean that responsibility is distributed evenly between them.

Conflict with Alex Nilsen

Julian has met Alex Nilsen three times: at Poppy’s bar during Alex’s Christmas break, at Julian’s bar during spring break, and for breakfast at Waffle House before Alex and Poppy leave for a trip. Julian appears to have little opinion of Alex, which disappoints Poppy. Alex, by contrast, despises Julian, and his criticism focuses on Julian’s conduct rather than on a single dramatic quarrel. He sees him as reckless and careless: Julian arrives late, may disappear from contact for days, and has not met Poppy’s parents despite living in the same city.

Poppy defends the arrangement as one that works for them and says she does not even want Julian to meet her family. Alex nevertheless insists that Julian does not understand Poppy and that he has no idea how lucky he is. Poppy experiences the remark as both sweet and hurtful. It makes her embarrassed about the relationship, even though she is not certain Alex is right, and she answers by insisting that she is lucky too and that Julian is special.

This disagreement leaves Julian’s place in Poppy’s life unresolved rather than simply disproved by Alex’s objections. Alex identifies real patterns—lateness, intermittent contact, and distance from her family—while Poppy values the intimacy and freedom she shares with Julian. Her defense does not erase the mismatch between Julian’s irregular presence and the significance she assigns to their time together. In this account, Julian is defined by that tension: he can be generous, tender, and compelling in private, while remaining hard to rely on by the standards Alex believes Poppy deserves.