P.S. I Still Love You (25 page)

54

BIRTHDAY BREAKFAST AT THE DINER
was a bit of a tradition with Margot and Josh and me. If my birthday was on a weekday, we’d wake up early and go before school. I’d order blueberry pancakes, and Margot would put a candle in them, and they’d sing.

The day of my seventeenth birthday, Josh sends me a
Happy Bday
text, but I get that we won’t be going to the diner. He has a girlfriend now, and it would be weird, especially with no Margot. The text is enough.

For breakfast Daddy makes chorizo scrambled eggs, and Kitty’s made me a big card with pictures of Jamie pasted all over it. Margot video-chats me to wish me happy birthday and to tell me my present should be arriving that afternoon or the next.

At school Chris and Lucas put a candle in the donuts they got out of the vending machine and they sing me “Happy Birthday” in the hallway. Chris gives me a new lipstick: red for when I want to be bad, she says. Peter doesn’t say anything to me in chemistry class; I doubt he knows it’s my birthday, and besides, what could I even expect him to say after the way things ended between us? Still, it’s a nice day, uneventful in its niceness.

But then, as I’m leaving school, I see John parked out front. He’s standing in front of his car; he hasn’t seen me yet. In this bright afternoon light, the sun warms John’s blond head like a halo, and suddenly I’m struck with the visceral memory of loving him from afar, studiously, ardently. I so admired his slender hands, the slope of his cheekbones. Once upon a time I knew his face by heart. I had him memorized.

My steps quicken. “Hi!” I say, waving. “How are you here right now? Don’t have you school today?”

“I left early,” he says.

“You? John Ambrose McClaren cut school?”

He laughs. “I brought you something.” John pulls a box out of his coat pocket and thrusts it at me. “Here.”

I take it from him, it’s heavy and substantial in my palm. “Should I . . . should I open it right now?”

“If you want.”

I can feel his eyes on me as I rip off the paper, open the white box. He’s anxious. I ready a smile on my face so he’ll know I like it, no matter what it is. Just the fact that he thought to buy me a present is so . . . dear.

Nestled in white tissue paper is a snow globe the size of an orange, with a brass bottom. A boy and girl are ice-skating inside. She’s wearing a red sweater; she has on earmuffs. She’s making a figure eight, and he’s admiring her. It’s a moment caught in amber. One perfect moment, preserved under glass. Just like that night it snowed in April.

“I love it,” I say, and I do, so much. Only a person who really knew me could give me this gift. To feel so known, so understood. It’s such a wonderful feeling, I could cry. It’s something I’ll keep forever. This moment, and this snow globe.

I get on my tiptoes and hug him, and he wraps his arms around me tight and then tighter. “Happy birthday, Lara Jean.”

I’m about to get into his car when I see Peter striding over to us. “Hold up a second,” he says, a pleasant half smile on his face.

Warily I say, “Hey.”

“Hey, Kavinsky,” John says.

Peter gives him a nod. “I didn’t get a chance to say happy birthday, Covey.”

“But—you saw me in chem class . . . ,” I say.

“Well, you left in a hurry. I have something for you. Open up your hands.” He takes the snow globe out of my hand and gives it to John. “Here, can you hold this?”

I look from Peter to John. Now I’m nervous.

“Hold your hands out,” Peter prompts. I look at John one more time before I obey, and Peter pulls something out of his pocket and drops it into my palms. My heart locket. “It’s yours.”

Slowly I say, “I thought you returned the necklace to your mom’s store.”

“Nope. Wouldn’t look right on another girl.”

I blink. “Peter, I can’t accept this.” I try to give it back, but he shakes his head; he won’t take it. “Peter, please.”

“No. When I get you back, I’m gonna put that necklace back around your neck and pin you.” He tries to hold my eyes with his own. “Like the 1950s. Remember, Lara Jean?”

I open my mouth and then close it. “I don’t think pin means what you think it means,” I tell him, holding the necklace out to him. “Please, just take it.”

“Tell me what your wish is,” he urges. “Wish for anything, and I’ll give it to you, Lara Jean. All you have to do is ask.”

I feel dizzy. All around us, people are exiting the building, walking to their cars. John is standing beside me, and Peter is looking at me like we’re the only two people here. Anywhere.

It’s John’s voice that makes me break away. “What are you
doing
, Kavinsky?” John says, shaking his head. “This is pathetic. You treated her like garbage and now you decide you want her back?”

“Stay out of it, Sundance Kid,” Peter snaps. To me he says softly, “You promised you wouldn’t break my heart. In the contract you said you wouldn’t, but you did, Covey.”

I’ve never heard him sound so sincere, so heartfelt. “I’m sorry,” I say, my voice whisper-thin. “I just can’t.”

I don’t look back at Peter as I get into the car, but his necklace is still dangling from my fist. At the last second I turn around, but we’re too far away; I can’t see if Peter’s still there or not. My heart is racing. What would I regret losing more? The reality of Peter or the dream of John? Who can’t I live without?

I think back to John’s hand on mine. Lying next to him in the snow. The way his eyes looked even bluer when he laughed. I don’t want to give that up. I don’t want to give up Peter, either. There are so many things to love about them both. Peter’s boyish confidence, his sunny outlook on life, the way he is so kind to Kitty. The way my heart flips over every time I see his car pull up in front of my house.

We drive in silence for a few minutes, and then, looking straight ahead, John says, “Did I even have a shot?”

“I could fall in love with you so easily,” I whisper. “I’m halfway there already.” His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “You’re so perfect in my memory, and you’re perfect now. It’s like I dreamed you into being. Of all the boys, you’re the one I would pick.”

“But?”

“But . . . I still love Peter. I can’t help it. He got here first and he . . . he just won’t leave.”

He sighs a defeated kind of sigh that hurts my heart. “Goddamn it, Kavinsky.”

“I’m sorry. I like you, too, John, I really do. I wish . . . I wish we got to go to that eighth grade formal.”

And then John Ambrose McClaren says one last thing, a thing that makes my heart swell. “I don’t think it was our time then. I guess it isn’t now, either.” John looks over at me, his gaze steady. “But one day maybe it will be.”

55

I’M IN THE GIRLS’ BATHROOM
, retying a bow around my ponytail, when Genevieve walks in. My mouth goes dry. She freezes, and then she turns on her heel to go inside a stall. When I say, “You and I are always meeting in the bathroom,” she doesn’t reply. “Gen . . . I’m sorry for the other day.”

Genevieve whirls around and advances on me. “I don’t want your apology.” She grabs my arm. “But if you tell one single person, I swear to God—”

“I wouldn’t!” I cry out. “I won’t! I would never do that.”

She releases my arm. “Because you feel sorry for me, right?” Genevieve laughs bitterly. “You’re such a little phony. Your whole sugary sweet routine makes me sick, you know that? You’ve got everyone fooled, but I know who you really are.”

The venom in her voice stuns me. “What did I ever do to you? Why do you hate me so much?”

“Oh my God. Stop. Quit acting like you don’t know. You need to own the shit you did to me.”

“Wait a minute,” I say. “What
I
did to
you
? You’re the one who put a sexy video of me on the Internet! You don’t get to change the story because you feel like it. I’m Éponine; you’re Cosette! Don’t make me out to be the Cosette!”

Her lip curls. “What the fuck are you even talking about?”

“
Les Mis
!”

“I don’t watch musicals.” She turns like she’s going to leave, and then she stops and says, “I saw you guys that day in seventh grade. I saw you kiss him.”

She was there?

She sees my surprise; she revels in it. “I left my jacket down there, and when I went back to get it, I saw the two of you kissing on the couch. You broke the most basic rule of girl code, Lara Jean. Somehow in your mind you’ve made me out to be the villain. But what you should know is I wasn’t being a bitch just for the sake of being a bitch. You deserved it.”

My head is spinning. “If you knew, why did you keep being my friend? You didn’t stop being my friend until later.”

Genevieve shrugs. “Because I liked throwing it in your face. I had him and you didn’t. Believe me, we weren’t friends anymore from that moment on.”

It’s odd that out of all the things she’s ever said to me, this hurts the most. “Just so you know, I didn’t kiss him. He kissed me. I didn’t even think of him that way, not before that kiss.”

Then she says, “The only reason he even kissed you that day was because I wouldn’t. You were second choice.” She runs her hand through her hair. “If you had admitted it back then, I might have forgiven you. Might have. But you never did.”

I swallow. “I wanted to. But it was my first kiss, and it was with the wrong guy, and I knew he didn’t like me.”

It all makes sense. Why she went to such lengths to keep me and Peter apart. Leaning on him, making him prove she was still his first choice. It’s no excuse for all the things she’s done, but I see my part in it now. I should’ve told her about the kiss right away, way back in seventh grade. I knew how much she liked him.

“I’m sorry, Genevieve. I truly am. If I could take it back, I would.” Her eyebrow twitches, and I know she’s not unmoved. Impulsively I say, “We were friends once. Can we—do you think we can ever be friends again?”

She looks at me with such complete and utter disdain, like I’m a child who’s asked for the moon. “Grow up, Lara Jean.”

In a lot of ways, I feel like I have.

56

I’M LYING DOWN ON MY
back in the tree house, looking out the window. The moon is carved so thin, it’s a thumbnail clipping in the sky. Tomorrow, no more tree house. I’ve barely thought about this place, and now that it’s disappearing, I’m sad. It’s like all childhood toys, I suppose. It doesn’t become important until you don’t have it anymore. But it’s more than just a tree house. It’s good-bye, and it feels like the end of everything.

As I sit up, I see it, purple string poking out of a floorboard, sprouting forth like a blade of grass. I tug on the end and it pulls free. It’s Genevieve’s friendship bracelet, the one I gave to her.

Believe me, we weren’t friends anymore from that moment on.

That isn’t true. We still had sleepovers, birthdays; she still cried to me the time she thought her parents were getting divorced. She couldn’t have hated me that whole time. I won’t believe it. This friendship bracelet proves it.

Because it’s what she put in the time capsule, her most treasured thing, just like it was mine. And then, at the party, she took it out, she hid it; she didn’t want me to see. But now I know. I was important to her then too. We were true friends once. Tears spring to my eyes. Good-bye, Genevieve, good-bye middle school years, good-bye tree house and everything that was important to me that one hot summer.

People come in and out of your life. For a time they are your world; they are everything. And then one day they’re not. There’s no telling how long you will have them near. A year ago I could not have imagined that Josh would no longer be a constant for me. I couldn’t have conceived of how hard it would be to not see Margot every day, how lost I would feel without her—or how easily Josh could slip away, without me even realizing. It’s the good-byes that are hard.

“Covey?” Peter’s voice calls up to me from outside, down below in the dark.

I sit up. “I’m here.”

He climbs up the ladder quickly, ducking so his head doesn’t hit the ceiling. He crawls over to the tree-house wall opposite from me, so we are sitting on either side. “They’re bulldozing the tree house tomorrow,” I tell him.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. They’re going to put up a gazebo. You know, like in
The Sound of Music
?”

Peter squints one eye at me. “Why did you call me over here, Lara Jean? I know it wasn’t to talk about
The Sound of Music
.”

“I know about Genevieve. Her secret, I mean.”

He leans his back against the tree-house wall, and his head drops back with a slight thud. “Her dad’s an asshole. He’s cheated on her mom before. Just never with someone so young.” He speaks in a rush, like it’s a relief to finally say the words out loud. “When things got really bad with her parents, Gen would find ways to hurt herself. I had to be the one to protect her. That was my job. Sometimes it scared me, but I liked being, I don’t know . . . needed.” Then he sighs and says, “I know she can be manipulative—I’ve always known that. In some ways it was easier for me to default back to what I knew. I think maybe I was scared.”

My breath catches. “Of what?”

“Of disappointing you.” Peter looks away. “I know sex is a big deal to you. I didn’t want to mess it up. You’re so innocent, Lara Jean. And I have all this shit in my past.”

I want to say,
I never cared about your past.
But that isn’t true. It’s only then that I realize: Peter wasn’t the one who needed to get over Genevieve. It was me. All this time with Peter, I’ve been comparing myself to her, all the ways I don’t measure up. All the ways our relationship pales next to theirs. I’m the one who couldn’t let her go. I’m the one who didn’t give us a chance.

Suddenly he asks, “What do you wish for, Lara Jean? Now that you’ve won. Congrats, by the way. You did it.”

I feel a rush of emotion in my chest. “I wish that things could go back to the way they were between us. That you could be you and I could be me, and we’d have fun with each other, and it would be a really sweet first romance that I’ll remember my whole life.” I feel like I’m blushing as I say this last bit, but I’m glad I did, because it makes Peter’s eyes go soft and caramelly at me for just a second, and I have to look away.

“Don’t talk like it’s doomed already.”

“I don’t mean to. The first isn’t necessarily the last, but it will always be the first, and that’s special. Firsts are special.”

“You’re not first,” Peter says. “But you’re the most special to me, because you’re the girl I love, Lara Jean.”

Love.
He said “love.” I feel dizzy. I am a girl who is loved, by a boy, and not just her sisters and father and dog. A boy with beautiful eyebrows and a sleight of hand. “I’ve been going crazy without you.” He scrubs the back of his head. “Can’t we just—”

“You’re saying I drive you crazy too?” I interrupt.

He groans. “I’m saying you drive me more crazy than any girl I’ve ever met.”

I crawl toward him, and I reach out and trace my finger along his eyebrow that feels like silk. I say, “In the contract we said we wouldn’t break each other’s hearts. What if we do it again?”

Fiercely he says, “What if we do? If we’re so guarded, it’s not going to be anything. Let’s do it fucking for real, Lara Jean. Let’s go all in. No more contract. No more safety net. You can break my heart. Do whatever you want with it.”

I put my hand to his chest, over his heart. I can feel it beating. I let my hand fall away. His heart is mine, just mine. I believe it now. Mine to protect and care for, mine to break.

So much of love is chance. There’s something scary and wonderful about that. If Kitty had never sent those letters, if I hadn’t gone to the hot tub that night, it might’ve been him and Gen. But she did send those letters, and I did go out there. It could have happened lots of ways. But this is the way it happened. This is the path we took.
This
is our story.

I know now that I don’t want to love or be loved in half measures. I want it all, and to have it all, you have to risk it all.

So I take Peter’s hand; I put it on my heart. I tell him, “You have to take good care of this, because it’s yours.”

He looks at me in such a way that I know for sure—he’s never looked at another girl quite like this.

And then I’m in his arms, and we’re hugging and kissing, and we’re both shaking, because we both know—this is the night we become real.