Poppy's unresolved attraction to Alex

Poppy Wright’s unresolved attraction to Alex Nilsen is a recurring private countercurrent to their platonic friendship: she can name Alex Nilsen as central to her happiness and imagine kissing him, yet she also insists that dating him would endanger something she values too much. The tension appears not as a declaration or a decision to pursue romance, but in brief bodily reactions and moments of closeness that Poppy notices, contains, and then turns away from.

Identity and Origins

At a spin class, Rachel Krohn tells Poppy Wright she will not pry into what makes her happy. Poppy answers immediately that it is Alex Nilsen, then clarifies that she means their summer trips. Nothing, she says, has surpassed them. The distinction matters: Poppy can readily identify Alex Nilsen as a source of exceptional happiness, but frames that happiness through their shared history rather than through a romantic claim.

Her comparison reaches beyond the present conversation. Even the prospect of marriage or having a baby does not displace her expectation that her best day might remain one of two experiences: a summer trip with Alex Nilsen or a hike through misty redwoods. On the redwoods trip, rain emptied the trails; the two had the forest to themselves, carried wine in their backpack, and set off together. The remembered scene gives her attachment a concrete form: shared travel, privacy, and a sense of being happiest in Alex Nilsen’s company. It also shows why the feeling is difficult to separate from the friendship itself. The trips are not merely occasions on which attraction appears; they are the experiences Poppy identifies as the high point of her happiness.

The Platonic Boundary and the What-If

When Poppy sees Alex Nilsen again, she notices his height, but that is a safer explanation for her staring than the more intimate feelings she keeps to herself: she has missed his smile and strong body, and is glad to see him. Alex Nilsen responds that it is good to see her too. Poppy’s private attention is already more charged than her outward explanation, while their exchange stays within the language of friendship.

During a turbulent flight, Poppy reassures Alex Nilsen that she will recognize if there is a real reason to panic. He takes her hand, and his fingers settle into hers. Poppy describes their ordinary arrangement as overwhelmingly platonic: she estimates that she sees him that way 95 percent of the time and guesses that his proportion is even higher. The remaining five percent is the what-if. It brings questions about kissing and touch, but remains a gentle possibility rather than a plan. Even the thought of Alex Nilsen’s careful dental hygiene enters her imagining, giving the attraction a comic, mundane detail instead of turning it into an idealized fantasy.

Poppy draws a firm conclusion from that restraint: she likes Alex Nilsen too much to date him, and believes they are entirely incompatible. The position holds two meanings at once. Her affection is strong enough to make a romantic relationship seem consequential, but she treats preserving their existing closeness as more important than testing what a relationship might be. The what-if is therefore neither absent nor allowed to govern her actions. It is acknowledged as a recurring possibility and bounded before it can become an explicit pursuit.

Physical Closeness and Self-Containment

In Palm Springs, an exchange over sunscreen briefly makes that boundary harder to maintain. Alex Nilsen mentions feeling bad about repeatedly making a Sad Puppy Face at Poppy, after explaining that children tease him with images that unsettle him. Poppy’s hands stop on his warm, sun-freckled shoulders. She tells him that she would be sad if he stopped. The response affirms that the familiar gesture matters to her; it is not simply an irritation she wants him to abandon.

As Alex Nilsen looks back at her, Poppy registers the closeness through sharply specific physical details: the muscles under her hands, his hazel eyes, and his cologne mixed with the coconut scent of sunscreen. For an instant she imagines leaning over his shoulder to kiss him and drawing him toward her. The thought belongs to the same five-percent exception she had identified earlier, but now the imagined possibility is pressed against an immediate, shared physical moment.

Poppy then recognizes that there is no more room for the what-if, and suspects Alex Nilsen understands that too: he clears his throat and looks away. He offers to put sunscreen on her back, and she agrees. As his palms move across her skin, she tries not to register the sensation as anything more than the practical act they are performing. The crowded pool offers no useful distraction: babies squeal, people laugh, and preteens jump into spaces too small for them, but Poppy remains acutely conscious of Alex Nilsen’s hands. The scene makes the divide between conscious restraint and bodily response visible without resolving it in a romantic gesture.

Recurrence and Significance

The attraction recurs in different forms: in Poppy Wright’s ranking of the summer trips as her greatest happiness, in the concealed warmth of seeing Alex Nilsen again, in the handhold during turbulence, and in the sunscreen scene. Each occurrence remains brief. Poppy neither denies the possibility of desire nor treats it as sufficient reason to change the terms of their relationship. Her estimate that it occupies only a small part of her outlook coexists with the care and vividness with which she describes it.

The contrast between her stated boundary and her bodily attention gives the feeling its unresolved character. She can imagine kissing Alex Nilsen, feel thrilled when he holds her hand, and be affected by his touch, yet the thought stops short of action. In the pool scene, she redirects the conversation by abruptly asking whether he ever talks to Sarah Torval. That pivot shows her seeking another subject just as intimacy becomes difficult to ignore. Across these moments, the what-if persists as a contained possibility: significant enough to shape what Poppy notices and avoids, but not yet enough to displace the friendship she is determined to protect.