Poppy spends the night thinking about Alex and the trips they used to take together. What she feels is not ordinary wanderlust but a painful longing for something that seems impossible after two years of distance broken only by stiff birthday texts. On her balcony, she opens her old blog, rereads posts about their Summer Trips, and sees how miserable she was after Croatia, which convinces her that losing Alex is tied to her current unhappiness.

Driven by that realization, Poppy pulls up Alex's number and tries to compose a message. She deletes several versions because each one either feels too casual or too exposed, then accidentally sends a single awkward "Hey." She panics, but Alex immediately replies with a matching "Hey," forcing Poppy to keep the conversation going.

Poppy tries humor, and Alex responds in kind, joking about stolen sandwiches in his school break room. Their exchange quickly settles into the teasing rhythm they used to share, with references to an old lunch theft, Alex's teaching job, and Poppy's habit of joking about government surveillance. When Alex sends a blurry selfie of his exaggerated "Sad Puppy Face," Poppy laughs hard, and the warmth of their old connection briefly returns.

The mood shifts when Poppy asks about Alex's cat, Flannery O'Connor, and Alex says the cat is dead. Poppy is deeply shaken, both because she knows how much Alex loved the cat and because she realizes he went through that loss without telling her. She apologizes, Alex answers with a restrained thanks, and after a long pause he ends the conversation for the night, leaving Poppy alone with the revived ache of everything that has changed between them.