Poppy and Alex arrive in Palm Springs already caught in awkward silence, but the mood shifts when a rideshare couple assumes they are newlyweds. Poppy goes along with the misunderstanding, and Alex joins in, inventing a ridiculous story about meeting at Disneyland. The familiar game briefly restores their old rhythm. At the borrowed rental car, a rusted Ford Aspire, they tease each other about photography, habits, and change, and Poppy deliberately tells Alex she is glad he has not changed too much. Alex answers warmly, touches her hair, and compliments her haircut, creating a small but charged moment of closeness.

Alex drives them toward the desert in the foul-smelling, barely air-conditioned car, and the two keep joking about its flaws. As the drive settles, Poppy thinks about how different Alex and she were in high school: Alex knew how to move through Linfield quietly, while Poppy was mocked and isolated. Being with Alex had always erased that version of herself and made her feel fully known and accepted.

Poppy remembers the night in college when she finally told Alex the full story of her bullying, loneliness, and humiliation in Linfield after Alex had trusted her with painful memories about his mother’s death and the burdens he carried at home. Alex had responded with gentle affection instead of judgment, which made those memories hurt less. Back in the present, when Poppy jokes about her old nickname, Alex says he would never tolerate anyone bullying her and insists that she was never a cruel girl like his difficult student Jessica because she has always simply been Poppy. His defense reminds Poppy how deeply he has always seen her.

When they reach the Desert Rose complex, the brutal heat and Poppy’s careless joke about Ohio make Alex go briefly distant again. They haul their bags upstairs and enter the rental unit, only to find that the cheap studio has one real bed and a miserable pullout chair instead of two proper beds. The discovery alarms both of them because sharing such close quarters feels risky now that their friendship is still fragile. With the apartment overheated, the balcony blocked by construction, and even changing clothes requiring awkward coordination, the chapter ends with the trip feeling far more intimate and tense than Poppy planned.