by Jenny Han
Lucas laughs, but I can tell he likes it.
Dear Lucas,
I never met a boy with manners as good as yours. You ought to have a British accent. At homecoming, you wore a cravat and it suited you so well I think you could wear one all the time and get away with it.
Oh, Lucas! I wish I knew what kind of girls you liked. As far as I can tell, you haven’t dated anyone . . . unless you have a girlfriend at another school. You’re just so mysterious. I hardly know a thing about you. The things I know are so unsubstantial, so unsatisfying, like that you eat a chicken sandwich every day at lunch, and you’re on the golf team. I guess the one remotely real thing I know about you is you’re a good writer, which must mean you have deep reserves of emotion. Like that short story you wrote in creative writing about the poisoned well, and it was from a six-year-old boy’s perspective. It was so sensitive, so keen! That story made me feel like I knew you at least a little bit. But I don’t know you, and I wish I did.
I think you’re very special. I think you are probably one of the most special people at our school, and I wish more people knew that about you. Or maybe I don’t, because sometimes it’s nice to be the only one who knows something.
Love, Lara Jean
33
AFTER SCHOOL, CHRIS AND I are hanging out in my room. She’s in trouble with her mom for staying out all night, so she’s hiding out over here until her mom leaves for book club. We’re sharing a big bag of Kitty’s Pirate Booty, which I’m going to have to replace because she’ll complain if it’s missing from her lunch on Monday.
Chris stuffs a handful of Pirate Booty puffs in her mouth. “Just tell me, Lara Jean. How far have you guys gone?”
I almost choke. “We’ve gone nowhere! And we have no plans to go anywhere in the near future.” Or ever.
“Seriously? Not even over-the-bra action? A quick swipe across your chest?”
“No! I told you, me and my sister aren’t like that.”
Chris snorts. “Are you joking me? Of course Margot and Josh have had sex. Quit being so naive, Lara Jean.”
“This isn’t me being naive,” I tell her. “I know for a fact that he and Margot haven’t done it.”
“How? How do you know ‘for a fact’? I’d love to hear this.”
“I’m not telling you.”
If I tell Chris, she’ll only laugh more. She doesn’t understand; she only has a little brother. She doesn’t know how it is with sisters. Margot and I, we made a pact, back in middle school. We swore we wouldn’t have sex until we were married or we were really, really in love and at least twenty-one. Margot might be really, really in love, but she’s not married and she’s not twenty-one. She’d never go back on her word. With sisters a pact is everything.
“No, I’d really love to know.” Chris has that hungry glint in her eyes, and I know she’s just getting warmed up.
“You just want to make fun of it, and I’m not going to let you,” I say.
Chris rolls her eyes. “Fine. But there’s no way they haven’t boned.”
I think Chris talks like that on purpose to get a reaction from me. She loves a reaction, so I’m careful to not give her one. I calmly say, “Can you please stop talking about my sister and Josh having sex. You know I don’t like it.”
Chris takes a permanent marker out of her bag and starts to color in her thumbnail. “You need to stop being such a scaredy-cat. Seriously, you’ve built it up in your head to be this huge, life-changing moment, but it’s actually done in under five, and it’s not even the best part.”
I know she’s waiting for me to ask what the best part is, and I am curious, but I ignore her and say, “I think permanent marker is toxic for your nails,” to which she shakes her head at me like I’m a lost cause.
I wonder, though . . . what would it be like? To be that close to a boy and have him see all of you, no holding back. Would it be scary only for a second or two, or would it be scary the whole time? What if I didn’t like it at all? Or what if I liked it too much? It’s a lot to think about.
34
“DO YOU THINK IF A guy and a girl have been dating for a long time, they’ve automatically had sex?” I ask Peter. We’re sitting on the floor of the library, our backs against the wall of the reference section nobody ever goes to. It’s after school, the library’s empty, and we’re doing homework. Peter gets Cs and Ds in chemistry, so I’ve been helping him study.
Peter looks up from his chem book, suddenly interested. He tosses the book aside and says, “I need more information. How long have they been dating?”
“A long time. Like two years, something like that.”
“How old are they? Our age?”
“About.”
“Then most likely but not necessarily. It depends on the girl and the guy. But if I had to put money on it, yeah.”
“But the girl’s not like that. The guy isn’t either.”
“Who are we talking about here?”
“That’s a secret.” I hesitate, and then say, “Chris thinks there’s no way they haven’t. She says it’s impossible.”
Peter snorts. “Why are you going to her for advice? That girl is a train wreck.”
“She is not a train wreck!”
He gives me a look. “Freshman year she got wasted on Four Loko and she climbed up on Tyler Boylan’s roof and did a striptease.”
“Were you there?” I demand. “Did you see it with your own two eyes?”
“Damn straight. Fished her clothes out of the pool like the gentleman I am.”
I blow out my cheeks. “Well, Chris never mentioned that story to me, so I can’t really speak to that. Besides, didn’t they ban Four Loko or whatever it’s called?”
“They still make it, but a shitty watered-down version. You can dump Five-Hour Energy in it to get the same effect.” I shudder, which makes Peter smile. “What do you and Chris even talk about?” he asks. “You have nothing in common.”
“What do we talk about?” I counter.
Peter laughs. “Point taken.” He pushes away from the wall and puts his head in my lap, and I go completely still.
I try to make my voice sound normal as I say, “You’re in a really strange mood today.”
He raises an eyebrow at me. “What kind of mood am I in?” Peter sure loves to hear about himself. Normally, I don’t mind, but today I’m not in the mood to oblige him. He already has too many people in his life telling him how great he is.
“The obnoxious kind,” I say, and he laughs.
“I’m sleepy.” He closes his eyes and snuggles against me. “Tell me a bedtime story, Covey.”
“Don’t flirt,” I tell him.
His eyes fly open. “I wasn’t!”
“Yes, you were. You flirt with everyone. It’s like you can’t help yourself.”
“Well, I don’t ever flirt with you.” Peter sits back up and checks his phone, and suddenly I’m wishing I didn’t say anything at all.
35
I’M IN FRENCH CLASS, LOOKING out the window as I am wont to do, and that’s when I see Josh walking toward the bleachers by the track. He’s carrying his lunch, and he’s alone. Why is he eating alone? He has his comic-book group; he has Jersey Mike.
But I guess he and Jersey Mike didn’t hang out so much last year. Josh was always with Margot and me. The trio. And now we’re not even a duo, and he’s all alone. Part of it’s Margot’s fault for leaving, but I can see my part in it too—if I’d never started liking him, I wouldn’t have had to make up this whole Peter K. story. I could just be his good friend Lara Jean like always.
Maybe this is why Mommy told Margot not to go to college with a boyfriend. When you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, you only want to be with that person, and you forget about everybody else, and then when the two of you break up, you’ve lost all your friends. They were off doing fun stuff without you.
All I can say is, Josh sure is a lonely figure eating his sandwich on the very top bleacher.
* * *<
br />
I take the bus home from school because Peter had to leave early for a lacrosse game with his club team. I’m in front of the house, taking the mail out of our mailbox, when Josh pulls into his driveway. “Hey!” he calls out. He climbs out of his car and jogs over to me, his backpack slung over his shoulder.
“I saw you on the bus,” he says. “I waved, but you were doing your daydreaming thing. So how long’s your car going to be in the shop?”
“I don’t know. It keeps changing. They had to order a part from, like, Indiana.”
Josh gives me a knowing look. “So you’re secretly relieved, right?”
“No! Why would I be relieved?”
“Come on. I know you. You hate driving. You’re probably glad to have the excuse not to drive.”
I start to protest, but then I stop. There’s no use. Josh knows me too well. “Well, maybe I’m a teeny-tiny bit relieved.”
“If you ever need a ride, you know you can call me.”
I nod. I do know that. I wouldn’t call him for myself, but I would for Kitty, in an emergency.
“I mean, I know you have Kavinsky now, but I’m right next door. It’s way more convenient for me to give you a ride to school than him. I mean, it’s more environmentally responsible.” I don’t say anything, and Josh scratches the back of his neck. “I want to say something to you, but I feel weird bringing it up. Which is also weird, because we’ve always been able to talk to each other.”
“We can still talk to each other,” I say. “Nothing’s changed.” That’s the biggest lie I’ve ever told him, even bigger than the lie about my so-called dead twin Marcella. Until a couple of years ago Josh thought I had a twin sister named Marcella who died of leukemia.
“Okay. I feel like . . . I feel like you’ve been avoiding me ever since . . .”
He’s going to say it. He’s actually going to say it. I look down at the ground.
“Ever since Margot broke up with me.”
My head snaps up. That’s what he thinks? That I’m avoiding him because of Margot? Did my letter really make that little of an impact? I try to keep my face still and expressionless when I say, “I haven’t been avoiding you. I’ve just been busy.”
“With Kavinsky. I know. You and I have known each other a long time. You’re one of my best friends, Lara Jean. I don’t want to lose you, too.”
It’s the “too” that’s the sticking point. The “too” is what stops me in my tracks. It sticks in my craw. Because if he hadn’t said “too,” it would be about me and him. Not about me and him and Margot.
“That letter you wrote—”
Too late. I don’t want to talk about the letter anymore. Before he can say another word, I say, “I’ll always be your friend, Joshy.” And then I smile at him, and it takes a lot of effort. It takes so much effort. But if I don’t smile, I’ll cry.
Josh nods. “Okay. Good. So . . . so can we hang out again?”
“Sure.”
Josh reaches out and chucks my chin. “So can I give you a ride to school tomorrow?”
“Okay,” I say. Because wasn’t that kind of the whole point of this? To be able to hang out with Josh again without that letter hanging over our heads? To just be his good friend Lara Jean again?
* * *
After dinner I teach Kitty how to do laundry. She resists me at first, but I tell her that this is a job we are all sharing from now on, so she’d better just accept it.
“When the buzzer goes off, that means it’s done and you have to fold it right away or it’ll get wrinkled.”
To both of our surprise, Kitty likes doing laundry. Mostly because she can sit in front of the TV and fold and watch her shows in peace.
“Next time I’ll teach you how to iron.”
“Ironing, too? Who am I, Cinderella?”
I ignore her. “You’ll be good at ironing. You like precision and clean lines. You’ll probably be better at it than me.”
This piques her interest. “Yeah, maybe. Your stuff always looks wrinkled no matter what.”
After we finish the laundry, Kitty and I are washing up in the bathroom we share. There are two sinks; Margot had the one on the left and Kitty and I used to fight over who the sink on the right belonged to. It’s hers now.
Kitty’s brushing her teeth and I’m putting on a cucumber-aloe face mask, when Kitty says to me, “Do you think if I asked, Peter would take us to McDonald’s tomorrow on the way to school?”
I rub another dollop of green face mask onto my cheeks. “I don’t want you getting used to Peter giving us rides. You’re taking the bus from now on, okay?”
Kitty pouts. “Why!”
“Because. Besides, Peter’s not giving me a ride tomorrow, Josh is.”
“But won’t Peter be mad?”
My face is getting tight from the mask drying. Through clenched teeth I say, “Nah. He’s not the jealous type.”
“Then who’s the jealous type?”
I don’t have a good answer for that. Who is the jealous type? I’m mulling this over when Kitty giggles at me in the mirror and says, “You look like a zombie.”
I hold my hands out to her face and she ducks away. In my best zombie voice I say, “I want to eat your brains.”
Kitty runs away, screaming.
When I’m back in my room, I text Peter that I don’t need a ride to school tomorrow. I don’t tell him Josh is giving me a ride. Just in case.
36
TODAY’S NOTE FROM PETER SAYS, Tart and Tangy after school?
He’s drawn two boxes, a yes or a no. I check yes and drop the note in his locker.
* * *
After school ends, I meet Peter at his car, and we caravan with his lacrosse friends to Tart and Tangy. I order an original frozen yogurt with Cap’n Crunch and strawberries and kiwi and pineapple, and Peter gets key lime with crushed-up Oreos. I pull out my wallet to pay for my yogurt, but Peter stops me. He winks at me and says, “I got this.”
I whisper, “I thought you weren’t ever paying for anything.”
“My boys are here. I can’t look like a cheap-ass in front of my boys.” Then he puts his arm around me and says loudly, “For as long as you’re my girl, you don’t pay for frozen yogurt.”
I roll my eyes, but I’m not going to say no to a free frozen yogurt. No boy has ever paid for me before. I could get used to this kind of nice treatment.
I was bracing myself to see Genevieve here, but she doesn’t show. I think Peter’s wondering too, because he keeps his eyes on the door. With Genevieve, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. So far she’s been eerily, disturbingly quiet. She’s hardly ever in the cafeteria during lunch because she and Emily Nussbaum have been eating off campus, and when I see her in the hallways, she fake smiles at me without showing her teeth, which is somehow more menacing.
When is she going to strike back against me? When will I have my Jamila Singh moment? Chris says Genevieve’s too obsessed with her college boyfriend to care about me and Peter, but I don’t believe it. I’ve seen the way she looks at him. Like he’s hers.
The boys put a few tables together and we basically take over the place. It’s just like at the lunch table, with them being loud, talking about the football game coming up on Friday. I don’t think I say two words. I don’t really have anything to add. I just eat my free frozen yogurt and enjoy the fact that I’m not at home organizing my shoe closet or watching the Golf Channel with my dad.
* * *
We’re walking to our cars when Gabe says, “Hey, Lara Jean, did you know that if you say your name really fast, it sounds like Large? Try it! Larajean.”
Dutifully I repeat, “Larajean. Larjean. Largy. Actually I think it sounds more like Largy, not Large.”
Gabe nods to himself and announces, “I’m going to start calling you Large. You’re so little it’s funny. Right? Like those big guys who go by the name Tiny?”
I shrug. “Sure.”
Gabe turns to Darrell. “She’s so little she coul
d be our mascot.”
“Hey, I’m not that small,” I protest.
“How tall are you?” Darrell asks me.
“Five two,” I fib. It’s more like five one and a quarter.
Tossing his spoon in the trash, Gabe says, “You’re so little you could fit in my pocket!” All the guys laugh. Peter’s smiling in a bemused way. Then Gabe suddenly grabs me and throws me over his shoulder like I’m a kid and he’s my dad.
“Gabe! Put me down!” I shriek, kicking my legs and pounding on his chest.
He starts spinning around in a circle, and all the guys are cracking up. “I’m going to adopt you, Large! You’re going to be my pet. I’ll put you in my old hamster cage!”
I’m giggling so hard I can’t catch my breath and I’m starting to feel dizzy. “Put me down!”
“Put her down, man,” Peter says, but he’s laughing too.
Gabe runs toward somebody’s pickup truck and sets me down in the back. “Get me out of here!” I yell. Gabe’s already running away. All the guys start getting into their cars. “Bye, Large!” they call out. Peter jogs over to me and extends his hand so I can hop down.
“Your friends are crazy,” I say, jumping onto the pavement.
“They like you,” he says.
“Really?”
“Sure. They used to hate when I would bring Gen places. They don’t mind if you hang out with us.” Peter slings his arm around me. “Come on, Large. I’ll take you home.”
As we walk to his car, I let my hair fall in my face so he doesn’t see me smiling. It sure is nice being part of a group, feeling like I belong.
37
I VOLUNTEERED TO BAKE SIX dozen cup cakes for Kitty’s PTA bake sale. I did it because Margot’s done it for the past two years. Margot only ever did it because she didn’t want people to think Kitty’s family wasn’t involved enough in PTA. She did brownies both times, but I signed up for cupcakes because I thought they’d be a bigger hit. I bought a few different kinds of blue sprinkles and I made little toothpick flags that say BLUE MOUNTAIN ACADEMY. I thought Kitty would have fun helping me decorate.