Sarah Torval

Sarah Torval is Alex Nilsen’s former college crush and, across the story, his on-and-off partner, long-distance girlfriend, and expected fiancée. Poppy Wright initially sees Sarah as the careful, self-possessed person Alex would naturally choose—and as a possible obstacle to their own closeness. Sarah’s relationship with Alex does become serious, but it is neither simple nor secure; when she finally speaks directly with Poppy, she reveals that the silences between them have cost her, too.

Background and relationship with Alex Nilsen

Sarah is introduced in Poppy’s thoughts as Alex’s careful, conscientious college crush from the library: a yoga devotee whose apparent suitability for Alex contrasts with Poppy’s sense of herself as more chaotic and less composed. That contrast is Poppy’s perception, not a neutral account of Sarah. Their history begins as an unrequited crush for Alex, but does not end there. After Alex runs into Sarah while visiting friends in Chicago, they get a drink. Their renewed contact develops quickly from texts to phone calls and another visit, and then into a serious relationship.

The relationship requires a period of long-distance dating. After six months, Sarah accepts a teaching job and moves to Indiana to be with Alex while he finishes his MFA. She is content to stay while he works toward a doctorate and, as Poppy understands it, would probably follow him wherever he eventually settles. By the time Poppy reflects on the relationship, Alex and Sarah have been seriously involved for nine months. Their shared plans make Sarah more than a passing romantic interest: she belongs to the possible future Poppy fears she may not be part of.

Their history also includes repeated rupture. Poppy refers to Alex and Sarah breaking up twice, while Alex describes their history as a reason he might return to the relationship despite its difficulty. At one point, when Poppy raises the possibility that they might get back together, Alex says he does not know and objects when she presses him, pointing to both the grimness of dating and the weight of their shared past. Later, after Alex encounters Sarah in Chicago, their renewed relationship again becomes a source of uncertainty for Poppy. The narrative gives no complete account of either breakup from Sarah’s point of view, so her private reasons remain less visible than the effects of the on-and-off pattern.

Poppy Wright’s view of Sarah

Sarah’s importance is filtered through Poppy’s fear of losing her place in Alex’s life. Poppy suspects Sarah dislikes her partly because Sarah will not follow her back on social media, even though Poppy likes and comments on Sarah’s photographs of Alex with his new baby niece. Poppy even unfollows and refollows Sarah, hoping she might simply have missed the first request. The smallness of the gesture underscores how much meaning Poppy assigns to this uncertain connection: she wants acknowledgment from the person who may become central to Alex’s family life.

Poppy’s concern intensifies when Alex and Sarah may be together again. She imagines Sarah disapproving of the annual summer trip and fears that a marriage and children could leave her outside Alex’s everyday life. A teasing exchange between Poppy and Alex makes the possibility pointed: Poppy says that if Alex had married at twenty-four, he would have married Sarah; Alex answers with Poppy’s former partner, Guillermo. When Alex objects to Poppy carrying a torch for Guillermo, Poppy turns the joke back toward Alex and Sarah’s torturous on-and-off history. Alex repeatedly starts and stops typing, then changes the subject the next day with a picture of black robes marked for a spa trip. They avoid Sarah’s relationship status after that, leaving Poppy to read the subject change as evidence that something is happening again.

Even in person, Poppy’s concern about Sarah doubles as a way of managing her own attraction to Alex. During a poolside moment when Alex’s hands are on her, Poppy abruptly asks whether he talks to Sarah. Alex stops touching her and asks why Poppy wants to know, since he thought she did not even like Sarah. Poppy explains that she wants to make sure Alex is all right because he cares about Sarah; when he says he is fine but sounds uncomfortable, Poppy drops the subject. The exchange shows Sarah’s presence shaping the boundaries between the friends even when she is not there: Poppy’s question interrupts a charged moment, while Alex’s response makes clear that Poppy’s concern is not emotionally neutral.

Partnership, separation, and family expectations

Sarah’s relationship with Alex is presented not only as a romance but as a future that other people believe has already taken shape. David Nilsen tells Poppy that everyone expected Alex to marry Sarah. He then reveals that Alex had a ring and was supposed to propose before Sarah was gone. The revelation changes Poppy’s understanding of the stakes: Sarah was not simply a former crush or a girlfriend Alex might revisit, but someone with whom marriage had been seriously anticipated. David says he thought Poppy and Alex belonged together, but emphasizes that Sarah was great, that she and Alex loved each other, and that he wants Alex to have a life of his own rather than constantly caring for everyone else. Sarah’s absence therefore registers as a loss within Alex’s family as well as within the couple’s history.

The relationship resumes after another separation. Three weeks after Poppy’s bout of pneumonia, Poppy meets Trey; a month later, Alex and Sarah are back together. Alex says that the reconciliation is better this time and that they are on the same page. Poppy also notices a change in Sarah’s attitude toward her: Sarah seems finally to be warming to her. The few times Alex and Trey have met, they have also got along. For Poppy, these developments make a summer trip feel unusually free of tension and allow her to feel happy that she and Alex have never crossed the line between friendship and romance. That confidence is real in the moment, but it depends on the relationships around them remaining stable.

Sarah’s unease about the trip is not merely Poppy’s speculation. Alex tells Poppy that Sarah feels weird about it, and Poppy readily understands why: she says she would feel the same if her boyfriend had a friendship like Alex’s and Poppy’s. Poppy recognizes that a strictly platonic explanation would be hard to trust, given the persistent possibility of a what-if between the friends. Her sympathy does not erase her fear of exclusion, but it shows her beginning to take Sarah’s position seriously rather than treating her only as a rival.

Direct encounters and change

A small domestic episode brings Sarah and Poppy into the same room. Sarah wants to name Alex’s small cat Sadie, while Alex is not convinced the name fits and prefers to take time before naming an adult animal he does not yet know. In the kitchen, the cat makes a dramatic approach to Poppy, then hisses and swings its claws as Sarah enters carrying dirty dishes. Sarah laughs and remarks that the cat does not like Poppy. The moment is comic, but it also gives their awkwardness a concrete setting: they share space and can be pleasant with one another, without the scene pretending that the relationship is already effortless.

Their most consequential conversation comes after Poppy has withdrawn following the trip to Tuscany. Sarah tells Poppy that she had once thought all her problems would be solved if Poppy simply went away. Poppy did disappear after Tuscany, but Sarah says that this made her relationship worse rather than better. Poppy apologizes for not understanding her feelings before they could hurt anyone. Sarah agrees that it would have helped if any of the people involved had understood how Poppy and Alex felt about each other; the lack of recognition, rather than a simple contest between two women, has prolonged the hurt. Sarah’s account gives her a perspective the story had previously withheld: she had been affected by Poppy and Alex’s unspoken attachment, even while Poppy had largely interpreted her through suspicion and comparison.

Sarah’s response ends not in accusation but in practical assistance. She tells Poppy that teachers usually go to Birdies on Fridays, a local tradition, and suggests Alex might be there if he has not left. Poppy thanks her. Sarah’s final encouragement—that Poppy is doing the world a favor by taking Alex off the market—acknowledges the relationship between Poppy and Alex with warmth and wit. It does not erase Sarah and Alex’s history, including the ring and the future that almost happened, but it turns Sarah from the imagined gatekeeper of that future into someone who helps Poppy reach Alex. Her role is therefore crucial to the novel’s account of how romantic possibility affects more than the two people who eventually face it: uncertainty and silence have consequences for Sarah as well, and honesty allows her to act with generosity without denying that history.