I pull on my jeans and try on different tops—a frilly peach one that suddenly looks prissy in my eyes, a long fuzzy sweater with a penguin on it that looks too kiddish. I’m stepping into a pair of gray shorts with black suspenders when someone knocks at my door. I freeze and grab a sweater to cover myself up.

“Lara Jean?” It’s Peter.

“Yes?”

“Are you almost ready?”

“Almost! Just—just go downstairs. I’ll be down soon.”

He lets out an audible sigh. “Okay. I’m gonna see what the kid’s doing.”

When I hear his footsteps walking away, I scramble and try a cream polka-dot blouse with the shorts-suspenders ensemble. It’s cute, but is it too cute? Too much? And should I do black tights or black knee socks? Margot said I look Parisian in this outfit. Parisian is a good thing. It’s sophisticated, romantic. I try on a beret, just to see the effect, and I immediately throw it off. Definitely too much.

I wish Peter hadn’t snuck up on me with this. I need time to plan, to prepare. Though truthfully, if he’d asked me ahead of time, I would have come up with an excuse not to go. It’s one thing to go to Tart and Tangy after school, but a party with all of Peter’s friends, not to mention Genevieve?

I hop around my room, searching for my over-the-knee socks, then searching for my strawberry lip pot that looks like a strawberry. Gosh, I really need to clean my room. It’s hard to find anything in this mess.

I run to Margot’s room for her big grandpa cardigan, and I pass Kitty’s open door, where I see Peter and Kitty lying on the floor, working with her lab set. I root through Margot’s sweater drawer, which is now T-shirts and shorts because she’s taken most of her sweaters. No grandpa cardigan. But at the bottom of the drawer there is an envelope. A letter, from Josh.

I want to open it so badly. I know I shouldn’t.

Carefully, ever so carefully, I take out the letter and unfold it.

Dear Margot,

You say we had to break up because you don’t want to go to college with a boyfriend, and you want your freedom, and you don’t want to be held back. But you know and I know that’s not the real reason. You broke up with me because we had sex and you were scared of getting close to me.

I stop reading.

I can’t believe it. Chris was right and I was wrong. Margot and Josh did have sex. It’s like everything I thought I knew is the opposite. I thought I knew exactly who my sister was, but it turns out I don’t know anything.

I hear Peter calling my name. “Lara Jean! Are you ready yet?”

Hastily I fold the letter up and put it back in the envelope. I put it back in the drawer and slam the drawer shut. “Coming!”

38

WE’RE STANDING AT THE FRONT door of Steve Bledell’s mansion. Steve’s on the football team; he’s mostly known for having a rich stepdad with his own plane.

“Ready?” Peter asks me.

I wipe my palms on my shorts. I wish I’d had time to do something better to my hair. “Not really.”

“Then let’s talk strategy for a second. All you have to do is act like you’re in love with me. That shouldn’t be too hard.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re the vainest boy I’ve ever met.”

Peter grins and shrugs. He’s got his hand on the doorknob, but then he stops. “Hold on,” he says, and he pulls the hair tie out of my hair and tosses it into the yard.

“Hey!”

“It looks better down. Just trust me.” Peter runs his fingers through my hair and fluffs it up, and I swat his hand away. Then he takes his phone out of his back pocket and he snaps a picture of me.

I give him a puzzled look, and he explains, “In case Gen checks my phone.” I watch as he sets the picture as his wallpaper.

“Can we do another one?” I don’t like the way my hair looks.

“Nah, I like it. You look pretty.” He probably only said it so we could hurry up and go inside, but it makes me feel good.

Walking into this party with Peter Kavinsky, I can’t help but feel a sudden rush of pride. He’s here with me. Or is it that I’m here with him?

I see her as soon as we walk in—she’s on the couch with her girls; they’re all drinking from red Solo cups. No boyfriend in sight. She raises her eyebrows at me and whispers something to Emily Nussbaum. “Heyyy, Lara Jean,” Emily calls out, crooking her finger at me. “Come sit by us.”

I start to walk toward them, thinking Peter is next to me, but he’s not. He’s stopped to say hi to someone. I look at him with panicky eyes and he just gestures at me to keep going. He mouths, You’re up.

Crossing the room alone feels like crossing a continent, with Gen and her friends watching me. “Hi, guys,” I say, and my voice comes out high-pitched and little-girlish. There’s no room for me on the couch, so I perch on an armrest like a bird on a telephone wire. I keep my eyes trained on Peter’s back; he is across the room with some guys from the lacrosse team. It must be nice to be him. So at ease, so comfortable with himself, knowing that people are waiting for him, like Peter’s here, now the party can really get started. I look around the room, just to have something to do, and see Gabe and Darrell, and they wave at me very nicely, but they don’t come over. It feels like everyone is waiting and watching, waiting and watching to see what Genevieve will do.

I wish I hadn’t come.

Emily leans forward. “We’re all dying to know . . . what’s the story with you and Kavinsky?”

I know she’s been commissioned by Gen to ask. Gen’s sipping her drink, casual as can be, but she’s waiting for my answer. Is she drunk yet? I wonder. From everything I’ve heard and know about Gen, she is a mean drunk. Not that I’ve ever personally experienced it, but I’ve heard things. There are stories.

I wet my lips. “Whatever Peter said . . . I guess that’s the story.”

Emily waves this off like whatever Peter says doesn’t really count. “We want to hear it from you. I mean, it’s just so surprising. How did this even happen?” She leans closer, like we are girlfriends.

When I hesitate, when my eyes dart toward Genevieve, she smiles and rolls her eyes. “It’s okay, you can say, Lara Jean. Peter and I are over. I don’t know if he told you this, but I’m actually the one who broke up with him, so.”

I nod. “That’s what he said.” That is not what he said, but it’s what I already knew.

“So when did you guys get together?” She tries to sound offhand, but I know my answer is important to her. She’s trying to catch me in something.

“Pretty recently,” I say.

“How recently?” she presses.

I swallow. “Right before school started,” I tell her. Isn’t that what Peter and I decided the story was going to be?

Genevieve’s eyes go bright and my heart sinks. I’ve said the wrong thing, but it’s too late. It’s hard not to get caught up in her spell. She’s the kind of person you want to like you. You know she can be cruel; you’ve seen her be cruel. But when her eyes are on you, and she’s paying attention to you, you want it to last. Her beauty is part of it, but there’s something more—something that draws you in. I think it’s her transparency—everything she thinks or feels is written all over her face, and even if it wasn’t, she’d say it anyway, because she says what she thinks, without thinking first.

I can see why Peter has loved her for so long.

“I think it’s adorable,” Genevieve says, and then the girls start talking about some concert they’re trying to get tickets for and I just sit there, glad I don’t have to talk anymore, wondering how it’s going with the cupcakes back at home. I hope Daddy isn’t overbaking them. There’s nothing worse than a dry cupcake.

The girls move on to talking about Halloween costumes, so I get up and go to the bathroom. I come back to find Peter sitting in a wingback leather armchair, drinking a beer and talking to Gabe. There’s nowhere for me to sit; my spot on the couch has been taken. Now what?

I stand there for a second and then I go for it: I do what a girl in love with Peter would do. I do what Genevieve would do. I march right in and plop down in his lap like it’s my rightful place.

Peter yelps in surprise. “Hey,” he says, coughing on his beer.

“Hey,” I say. Then I tweak him once on the nose like I saw a girl do in a black-and-white movie.

Peter shifts in his seat and gives me a look like he’s trying not to laugh, and I get nervous—tweaking a boy on the nose is romantic, right? Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see Genevieve glaring at us. She whispers something to Emily and stalks out of the room.

Success!

* * *

Later I am pouring myself Cherry Coke and I see Genevieve and Peter, talking in the kitchen. She’s speaking to him in a low, urgent voice, and she reaches out and touches his arm. He tries to brush her hand away, but she doesn’t let go.

I’m so mesmerized I don’t even notice when Lucas Krapf comes up to me, popping the cap off a bottle of Bud Light. “Hey, Lara Jean.”

“Hi!” I’m relieved to see a familiar face.

He stands next to me, our backs against the dining room wall. “What are they fighting about?”

“Who even knows?” I say. I smile a secret smile. Hopefully, it’s about me, and Peter will be happy our plan is finally working.

Lucas crooks his finger at me so I’ll come closer. He whispers, “Fighting isn’t a good sign, Lara Jean. It means you still care.” His breath smells like beer.

Hmm. Genevieve obviously still cares. Peter must too.

Lucas pats me on the head fondly. “Just be careful.”

“Thank you,” I say.

Peter stalks out of the kitchen and says, “Are you ready to go?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer him; he just starts walking, his shoulders stiff.

I give Lucas a shrug. “See you on Monday, Lucas!” Then I scurry after Peter.

He’s still mad; I can tell by the way he jerks the keys into the ignition. “God, she makes me crazy!” He’s so keyed up energy is vibrating off him in waves. “What did you say to her?”

I shift uncomfortably in my seat. “She asked me when we got together. I told her just before school started.”

Peter does a full-body groan. “We hooked up that first weekend.”

“But . . . you guys were broken up already.”

“Yeah, well.” Peter shrugs. “Whatever. What’s done is done.”

Relieved, I click on my seat belt and kick my shoes off. “What were you two fighting about tonight, anyway?”

“Don’t worry about it. You did a good job, by the way. She’s so jealous it’s killing her.”

“Yay,” I say. Just as long as she doesn’t kill me.

We drive through the night in silence. Then I ask, “Peter . . . how did you know you loved Genevieve?”

“God, Lara Jean. Why do you have to ask those kind of questions?”

“Because I’m a naturally curious person.” I flip down his mirror and start braiding the top of my hair. “And maybe the question you should be asking yourself is, why are you so afraid to answer those kinds of questions?”

“I’m not afraid!”

“Then why won’t you answer the question?”

Peter goes silent, and I’m pretty sure he’s not going to answer, but then, after a long pause where my question just hangs in the air, he says, “I don’t know if I ever loved Genevieve. How would I even know what that felt like? I’m seventeen, for God’s sake.”

“Seventeen’s not so young. A hundred years ago people got married when they were practically our age.”

“Yeah, that was before electricity and the Internet. A hundred years ago eighteen-year-old guys were out there fighting wars with bayonets and holding a man’s life in their hands! They lived a lot of life by the time they were our age. What do kids our age know about love and life?” I’ve never heard him talk like this before—like he actually cares about something. I think he’s still all worked up from his fight with Genevieve.

I wind my hair into a honey bun and secure it with a ponytail holder. “You know who you sound like? You sound like my grandpa,” I say. “Also I think you’re stalling because you don’t want to answer the question.”

“I answered it, you just didn’t like my answer.”

We pull up in front of my house. Peter turns off the engine, which is what he does when he wants to talk a little while longer. So I don’t jump out right away, I put my bag in my lap and search for my keys even though the lights are on upstairs. Gosh. To be sitting in the passenger seat of Peter Kavinsky’s black Audi. Isn’t that what every girl has ever wanted, in the history of boys and girls? Not Peter Kavinsky specifically, or yes, maybe Peter Kavinsky specifically.