A Thousand Boy Kisses

“But I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want my mamaw to leave me, even though I knew she had to. I knew when I returned home, Mamaw wouldn’t be there: not now, not ever.

Rune dropped down to sit beside me and pulled me in for a hug. I snuggled into his chest and cried. I loved Rune’s hugs, he always held me so tight. ‘My mamaw, Rune, she’s sick and she’s leaving.’”

Even before Rune and Poppy begin a romantic relationship, they depend on one another for support. Poppy does not stay with her family after learning of Mamaw’s impending death but goes to Rune. This passage also outlines the pattern of Poppy and Rune’s relationship, in which they will need to support each other through loss and mortality.

“‘Kiss three hundred and fifty-two. With my Rune against the auditorium wall.’ I held my breath, waiting for the next line. The glint in Poppy’s eyes told me that the words I hoped for next would spill from her lips. Leaning in closer, balancing on her tiptoes, she whispered, ‘And my heart almost burst.’ She only ever recorded the extra-special kisses. Only the ones that made her feel her heart was full. Every time we kissed, I waited for those words.

When they came, she almost blew me away with her smile.”

Rune’s desire to fulfill the extra condition placed on Poppy’s jar of boy kisses, that her heart almost bursts, clarifies the narrative device of the boy kisses. Not every kiss goes in the jar—only those that are special for some reason. Throughout the novel, the mention of numbered kisses indicates kisses that mark key events or emphasizes the importance of Poppy and Rune’s love for each other.

“My heart clenched. I’d seen Poppy every day since I was five. Slept beside her almost every night since I was twelve. Kissed her every day since I was eight, and loved her with everything I had for so many days I’d stopped keeping track. I had no idea how to live a day without her next to me. How to breathe without her by my side.”

This passage highlights The Intensity of Young Love but also underscores that Poppy and Rune have an unconventional relationship. Though they are only teenagers, their relationship has lasted as long as some marriages, and the results of Rune’s departure are similar to a divorce. Their lives are completely entwined, and separation presents the first time in Rune and Poppy’s adolescence that they cannot rely on each other as partners.

“As if feeling my heavy stare, Poppy slowly opened her eyes. I watched as the recollection of the night before flashed across her face. Her eyes widened as she took in our bodies, our hands. My heart skipped a beat in trepidation, but then a beautiful slow smile spread across her face. Seeing this, I shifted closer to her. Poppy buried her head in my neck as I wrapped her in my arms. I held her close for as long as I possibly could.”

The morning after Rune and Poppy have sex for the first time, they do not talk about what happened. They embrace, which, in the moment, appears to indicate mutual understanding of their final night together. However, this passage is intentionally vague, as Rune will worry over the next two years whether Poppy regrets having sex with Rune.

“I was tired and I ached. But more than that, I hurt in my heart. Because I knew that Rune would be back in the house next door from tonight, in school the next day, and I wouldn’t be able to speak to him. I wouldn’t be able to touch him or smile at him, like I’d dreamed about doing since the day I didn’t return his calls. And I wouldn’t be able to kiss him sweetly. I had to stay away.”

This passage foreshadows Poppy’s illness but also associates it with heartbreak, underscoring the seriousness of the latter. After Rune left, Poppy felt tired, and she assumed she was depressed from heartbreak. Now, she feels that same mixture of physical and emotional fatigue when Rune returns, and her primary concern is struggling to maintain her distance from Rune to avoid burdening him with her own mortality.

“As I stared down at the beautiful boy and the smitten girl staring back, both so in love, I wondered what had happened in the last two years to make Rune as troubled and rebellious as he appeared to be. Then I cried. I cried for the boy who was my sun. I mourned the boy I once loved with everything I had. I mourned Poppy and Rune—a couple of extreme beauty and even quicker death.”

Remembering her relationship with Rune before he returned to Norway, Poppy laments the way their time apart has changed him. Poppy herself is struggling to cope with the time apart, as she cries over her photo of her and Rune. The photo is a snapshot of them before Rune became angry and before Poppy developed her illness, and Poppy laments the loss of that moment, developing the theme of The Fleeting Nature of Life and the Importance of Memory.

“I fought back the sickness rising up my throat as I desperately fought to wipe the offensive image from my head. During these past two years, I thought I’d endured all facets of pain. But I was wrong. I was so wrong. Because nothing could compare with the pain of seeing the one you love in the arms of another. Nothing could compare to a promised lip’s betrayal of a kiss.”

When Poppy sees Rune and Avery about to kiss, it triggers a physical response and forces her to leave the room entirely. She thought she would be able to maintain her distance from Rune, thinking she was doing so for Rune’s sake, but she is realizing that she cannot avoid her feelings. In the context of their shared adventure of collecting 1,000 kisses, this betrayal hits Poppy even harder.

“Moonbeam hearts and sunshine smiles. I ran my mamaw’s mantra through my head. I squeezed my eyes shut and forced myself to repel the pain trying to flood in. Tried to stave off this ache in my chest, the ache that told me what I didn’t want to believe. That I had done this to Rune.”

Poppy’s method for coping with her illness is to adopt Mamaw’s optimism. Remaining positive is a challenge, though, especially when Poppy has to confront Rune’s feelings. She does not want to acknowledge her role in Rune’s pain but cannot avoid seeing his struggle.

“As her hand swilled around the paper hearts, I tracked the ones that traveled past the glass on my side. Most were blank. The jar was coated in dust—a sign it hadn’t been opened for a long time. A mixture of sadness and hope stirred inside me. Hope that no other boy had touched her lips. Sadness that the greatest adventure of her life had come to standstill. No more kisses.”

The dust on the jar is both comforting and upsetting for Rune, as he does not yet know if he and Poppy will be able to resume their relationship as it was before he left. The lack of new hearts implies that Poppy has not kissed anyone else, but the stagnation of both his and Poppy’s lives forces Rune to recognize the true cost of the time they have lost.

“‘I wish, Rune,’ Poppy said, causing me to glance up, ‘I wish that people realized how this felt every day. Why does it take a life ending to learn how to cherish each day? Why must we wait until we run out of time to start to accomplish all that we dreamed, when once we had all the time in the world? Why don’t we look at the person we love the most like it’s the last time we will ever see them? Because if we did, life would be so vibrant. Life would be so truly and completely lived.’”

Many “sick lit” novels center on the lesson communicated here by Poppy. Realizing that she only has limited time remaining, she advocates for living each day to the fullest. She wonders why an illness is required to make someone see the importance of living well and happily, and she tries to communicate the importance of this message to Rune and the reader.

“Rune’s hands gripped the steering wheel tightly, knuckles white. I could feel the anger rolling off him in waves. It made me feel so sad. Never before had I seen anyone harbor so much rage. I couldn’t imagine living like this every day. Couldn’t imagine feeling that barbed coil forever in my stomach, that aching of the heart.”

Poppy laments Rune’s anger because she knows how her decision to cut contact influenced Rune’s development over the past two years. She compares her own feelings of dread to Rune’s anger by acknowledging the perpetual anger and sadness Rune feels. While Rune became angry, Poppy spent two years coming to terms with her illness, and now she feels she needs to help Rune reach a measure of acceptance.

“Warm lips suddenly crashed to mine, Rune’s familiar mouth taking them with single-minded determination. His warmth and minty taste drowned out my senses. His hard chest kept me pinned to the wall, trapped, as he owned me with his kiss. Rune was showing me to whom I belonged. He was giving me no other choice but to submit to him, to give myself back to him after withdrawing for too many years.”

This passage is uncharacteristic of the novel as a whole, and it reflects the tropes of dark romances, in which consent is often a gray area. Although Poppy clearly doesn’t mind Rune’s actions, her word choice implies and even romanticizes possessiveness and coercion.

“It was a constant battle. Seeing Poppy so carefree and happy filled me with the brightest of lights, but knowing these moments were limited, finite, running out, brought only darkness. Patches of pitch black. And anger. The ever-present unwound coil of anger that waited to strike.”

Rune’s anger began when he was forced to leave Georgia, but even back home and with Poppy, that anger remains. Poppy’s presence alleviates the anger to some extent, but he feels it return when he thinks about the future, in which Poppy will die and he will be alone. The metaphor comparing anger to an “unwound coil” frames Rune’s anger as something that is already at the breaking point, while the image of it “striking” personifies the feeling, giving it agency and volition that underscore its potency.

“I felt a stray tear escape my eye. Poppy quickly brushed it away with her thumb. She leaned over me, across my chest and said, ‘I have come to understand that death, for the sick, is not so hard to endure. For us, eventually, our pain ends, we go to a better place. But for those left behind, their pain only magnifies.’”

Poppy echoes Mamaw as she explains to Rune that she doesn’t share his fear and sadness because she firmly believes that her death will bring her to the afterlife and end her suffering. Rune, however, will need to live on without Poppy, which is what ultimately scares him.

“I had been given blood and medication to help. And it had helped some, but it made me tired for a few days. Kept me inside so infections were kept at bay. My doctors had wanted me to stay in the hospital, but I’d refused. I wasn’t missing a second of my life by being back in that place. Not now that I could see that my cancer was increasing its grip on me. Every second was becoming more and more precious. Home was my happy place.”

Poppy decides to move home despite her illness because it became clear that being in the hospital will not cure her; it will simply make her less able to enjoy the time she has left. Importantly, Poppy decides to go home not knowing Rune will return. The novel focuses on Rune and Poppy together, but this passage highlights that Poppy loves her family, her home, and her friends, as well.

“‘This picture showed, in one image, the extent of the famine more than all the previous written reports ever did.’ Rune looked at me. ‘It made people sit up and pay attention. It showed them, in all its brutal severity, how bad the famine had grown.’ He pointed back at the child, crouched on the ground. ‘Because of this picture, aid work increased, the press covered more of the people’s struggles.’ He took a deep breath. ‘It changed their world.’”

Rune’s explanation of the significance of the photo of an African child and a vulture highlights that Rune’s love of photography goes beyond taking pictures of Poppy. However, the nature and impact of the photo also implicitly frame Poppy and Rune’s relationship: Rune’s photos capture the intensity of his love for Poppy even as many people in their lives downplay that love.

“I walked to the cello, the instrument that had always felt like an extension of my body. An instrument that filled me with a joy that one can never explain until it is truly experienced. A joy that is all-encompassing and carries with it a higher form of peace, of tranquility, of serenity; a delicate love like no other.”

Poppy’s love for her instrument runs parallel to her love for Rune as she notes how the cello fills her with inexplicable joy. The tranquility and serenity of playing the instrument mirror the feelings Poppy has when she is with Rune, and, like her love, music is fleeting and transient.

“‘I read once that when you dream each night, it’s actually a visit home. Home, Rune. Heaven.’ I began feeling the warmth that that vision brought at my toes. It began to travel over my whole body. ‘My heaven will be you and me in the blossom grove. Like always. Forever seventeen.’”

This passage expands on Poppy’s conception of the afterlife, adding specific details like staying the same age forever. Her vision of heaven for both her and Rune is the blossom grove, their favorite place to be, and Rune would presumably agree that this vision represents paradise.

“My lips lifted into a small smile. Mr. Litchfield left me alone in the garden. Reaching into my pockets, I pulled out my smokes. As I went to light the end, I stopped. As Poppy’s smile filled my head, her disapproving scrunched nose every time I smoked, I pulled the cigarette from my mouth and threw it to the ground. ‘Enough,’ I said aloud. ‘No more.’”

Now that both Rune’s and Poppy’s parents are on Rune’s side in Poppy’s fight against her illness, he reflects on how he is living his life. Smoking was a way to rebel against his parents and people who might disparage his love for Poppy. Now that no one stands in his way, he sees that he can stop smoking and focus on what matters most to him: Poppy.

“‘I know you didn’t ask me to, but I developed your films for you.’

I froze.

‘I know you asked me to take them home. But I’ve seen you, Rune. I’ve watched you take these photographs, and I know they’re for Poppy.’ He shrugged. ‘Now Poppy’s waking up more and more, I thought you might want to have them with you, for her to see.’”

Erik’s gesture of goodwill unsettles Rune, forcing him to see how his father is trying to repair their relationship. Erik fixed Rune’s camera, arranged for Poppy to return it to him, fixed the dark room, and now brings Rune the photos to show Poppy. Rune must confront his anger with Erik and weigh that anger against the support Erik is now showing him.

“You may feel you’ll lose half of your heart when I go, but that doesn’t give you permission to live half of a life. And half your heart will not be gone. Because I’ll always be walking beside you. I’ll always be holding your hand. I’m woven into the fabric of who you are—just as you will always be attached to my soul. You’ll love and laugh and explore…for both of us.”

Poppy knows that Rune is going to be overcome by grief when she dies, but she tries to convey the spirit of their relationship in the terms they used as children. Laughing and exploring defined their young love, and she encourages him to continue doing these things with her in his mind and heart. Even though Poppy will not be there to join him, he can channel her energy and perspective to inform his own life.

“‘Love you, son,’ he said softly. ‘Love you too,’ I replied, and meant every word. Things this week had been easier between us. If Poppy’s short life had taught me anything, it was that I had to learn to forgive. I had to love and I had to live. I’d blamed my pappa for so much for so long. In the end my anger caused only pain. Moonbeam hearts and sunshine smiles.”

Rune finally accepts that he needs to forgive his father and push forward, recalling how Poppy fought to reunite Rune, Alton, and Erik. The final line, a reference to Poppy’s mantra, shows Poppy’s lasting influence on Rune’s outlook.

“‘I love my family. I love my work. I love my friends and all the people that I’ve met on my adventures. I have a good and happy life, Poppymin. And I love, and I have loved with a full heart…you, baby. I’ve never stopped loving you. You were enough to last a lifetime.’ I sighed. ‘And my jar was filled…it was filled along with yours. There were no more kisses to be collected.’”

In the afterlife, Poppy worries that Rune regrets only loving her, but he rejects her concerns, asserting that their love was enough for “a lifetime,” though they both had brief lives. Critically, Rune points out how the jar of girl kisses Poppy gave him was redundant; he shared 1,000 girl kisses with Poppy as she filled her own with boy kisses. This quote establishes the balance and equity in their relationship.