Always and Forever, Lara Jean

by Jenny Han

  This can’t be real. I’m in a nightmare and any moment I’m going to wake up. Wake up wake up wake up.

  Dimly, I can hear people talking all around me; I hear a scream of joy down the hallway. Then the bell rings, and people are jumping out of their seats and running out the door. Madame Hunt murmurs, “They usually don’t send out the notices until after school.” I look up, and she’s looking at me with sad, sympathetic eyes. Mom eyes. Her eyes are what undo me.

  Everything is ruined. My chest hurts; it’s hard to breathe. All of my plans, everything I was counting on, none of it will come true now. Me coming home for Sunday night dinner, doing laundry on weeknights with Kitty, Peter walking me to class, studying all night at Clemons Library. It’s all gone.

  Nothing will go like we planned now.

  I look back down at my phone, read the words again. We are sorry to inform you . . . My eyes start to blur. Then I read it again, from the beginning. I didn’t even get wait-listed. I don’t even have that.

  I stand up, get my bag, and walk out the door. I feel a stillness inside of me, but at the same time this acute awareness of my heart pumping, my ears pounding. It’s like all the parts are moving and continuing to function as they do, but I’ve gone completely numb. I didn’t get in. I’m not going to UVA; they don’t want me.

  I’m walking to my locker, still in a daze, when I nearly run right into Peter, who is turning the corner. He grabs me. “So?” His eyes are bright and eager and expectant.

  My voice comes out sounding very far away. “I didn’t get in.”

  His mouth drops. “Wait—what?”

  I can feel the lump rising in my throat. “Yeah.”

  “Not even wait-listed?”

  I shake my head.

  “Fuck.” The word is one long exhale. Peter looks stunned. He lets go of my arm. I can tell he doesn’t know what to say.

  “I have to go,” I say, turning away from him.

  “Wait—I’ll come with you!”

  “No, don’t. You have an away game today. You can’t miss that.”

  “Covey, I don’t give a shit about that.”

  “No, I’d rather you didn’t. Just—I’ll call you later.” He reaches for me and I sidestep away from him and hurry down the hallway, and he calls out my name, but I don’t stop. I just have to make it to my car, and then I can cry. Not yet. Just a hundred more steps, and then a hundred more than that.

  I make it to the parking lot before the tears come. I cry the whole drive home. I cry so hard I can barely see, and I have to pull over at a McDonald’s to sit in the parking lot and cry some more. It’s starting to sink in, that this isn’t a nightmare, this is real, and this fall I won’t be going to UVA with Peter. Everyone will be so disappointed. They were all expecting I’d get in. We all thought it was going to happen. I never should have made such a big deal about wanting to go there. I should’ve just kept it to myself, not let anyone see how much I wanted it. Now they’ll all be worried for me, and it’ll be worse than Madame Hunt’s sad mom eyes.

  When I get home, I take my phone and go upstairs to my room. I take off my school clothes, put on my pajamas, and crawl into bed and look at my phone. I’ve got missed calls from Daddy, from Margot, from Peter. I go on Instagram, and my feed is all people posting their reaction shots to getting into UVA. My cousin Haven got in; she posted a screen grab of her acceptance letter. She won’t be going there, though. She’s going to Wellesley, her first choice. She doesn’t even care about UVA; it was her safety school. I’m sure she’ll feign sympathy for me when she finds out I didn’t get in, but inside she’ll feel secretly superior. Emily Nussbaum got in. She posted a picture of herself in a UVA sweatshirt and baseball cap. Gosh, did everyone get in? I thought my grades were better than hers. I guess not.

  A little while later, I hear the front door open and Kitty’s footsteps come running up the stairs. She throws open my bedroom door, but I am on my side, eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. “Lara Jean?” she whispers.

  I don’t reply. I need a little while longer before I have to face her and Daddy and tell them I didn’t make it. I make my breathing go heavy and natural, and then I hear Kitty retreat and close the door quietly behind her. Before long, I fall asleep for real.

  * * *

  When I wake up, it’s dark outside. It always feels so bleak to fall asleep when it’s still light out and then wake up to darkness. My eyes feel swollen and sore. Downstairs, I hear water running in the kitchen sink and the clink of silverware against dishes. I go down the staircase and stop before I make it to the bottom. “I didn’t get into UVA,” I say.

  Daddy turns around; his sleeves are rolled up, his arms soapy, his eyes even sadder than Madame Hunt’s. Dad eyes. He turns off the faucet and comes over to the staircase, hoists me up, and draws me into his arms for a hug. His arms are still wet. “I’m so sorry, honey,” he says. We’re almost the same height, because I am still standing on the stairs. I’m focusing on not crying, but when he finally releases me, he tips up my chin and examines my face worriedly, and it’s all I can do to keep it together. “I know how badly you wanted this.”

  I keep swallowing to keep down the tears. “It still doesn’t feel real.”

  He smooths the hair out of my eyes. “Everything is going to work out. I promise it will.”

  “I just—I just really didn’t want to leave you guys,” I cry, and I can’t help it, tears are rolling down my face. Daddy’s wiping them away as fast as they can fall. He looks like he’s going to cry too, which makes me feel worse, because I had planned to put on a brave face, and now look.

  Putting his arm around me, he admits, “Selfishly, I was looking forward to having you so close to home. But Lara Jean, you’re still going to get into a great school.”

  “But it won’t be UVA,” I whisper.

  Daddy hugs me to him. “I’m so sorry,” he says again.

  He’s sitting next to me on the staircase, his arm still around me, when Kitty comes back inside from walking Jamie Fox-Pickle. She looks from me to Daddy, and she drops Jamie’s leash. “Did you not get in?”

  I wipe my face and try to shrug. “No. It’s okay. It wasn’t meant to be, I guess.”

  “Sorry you didn’t get in,” she says, her voice tiny, her eyes sorrowful.

  “Come give me a hug at least,” I say, and she does. The three of us sit like that on the staircase for quite some time, Daddy’s arm around my shoulder, Kitty’s hand on my knee.

  * * *

  Daddy makes me a turkey sandwich, which I eat, and then I go back upstairs and get back in bed to look at my phone again, when there’s a knock at my window. It’s Peter, still in his lacrosse uniform. I jump out of bed and open the window for him. He climbs inside, searches my face, and then says, “Hey, rabbit eyes,” which is what he calls me when I’ve been crying. It makes me laugh, and it feels good to laugh. I reach out to hug him and he says, “You don’t want to hug me right now. I didn’t shower after the game. I came straight here.”

  I hug him anyway, and he doesn’t smell bad to me at all. “Why didn’t you ring the doorbell?” I ask, looking up at him, hooking my arms around his waist.

  “I thought your dad might not like me coming over so late. Are you okay?”

  “Kind of.” I let go of him and sit down on my bed, and he sits at my desk. “Not really.”

  “Yeah, me too.” There’s a long pause, and then Peter says, “I feel like I didn’t say the right things earlier. I was just bummed. I didn’t think this was going to happen.”

  I stare down at my bedspread. “I know. Me either.”

  “It just sucks so much. Your grades are way better than mine. Cary got in, and you’re better than him!”

  “Well, I’m not a lacrosse player or a golfer.” I try not to sound bitter-hearted, but it’s an effort. A very traitorous, very small thought worms its way into my head—it’s not fair that Peter’s going and I’m not, when I deserve it more. I worked harder. I got better grades, hig
her SAT scores.

  “Fuck them.”

  “Peter.”

  “Sorry. Screw them.” He exhales. “This is insane.”

  Automatically I say, “Well, it’s not insane. UVA’s a really competitive school. I’m not mad at them. I just wish I was going there.”

  He nods. “Yeah, me too.”

  Suddenly, we hear the toilet flush from the hallway, and we both freeze. “You’d better go,” I whisper.

  Peter gives me one more hug before climbing back out my window. I stand there and watch him run down the street to where he parked his car. After he drives away, I check my phone, and there are two missed calls from Margot and then a text from her that says, I’m so sorry.

  And that’s when I start to cry again, because that’s when it finally feels real.

  9

  WHEN I WAKE UP IN the morning, it’s the first thing I think of. How I’m not going to UVA, how I don’t even know where I’m going. My whole life I’ve never had to worry about that. I’ve always known where my place is, where I belong. Home.

  As I lie there in bed, I start a mental tally of all the things I’m going to miss out on, not going to a college just around the corner from home. The moments.

  Kitty’s first period. My dad’s an OB, so it’s not like he doesn’t have it covered, but I’ve been waiting for this moment, to give Kitty a speech about womanhood that she’ll hate. It might not happen for another year or two. But I got mine when I was twelve and Margot got hers when she was eleven, so who knows? When I got my first period, Margot explained all about tampons and what kind to use for what days, and to sleep on your belly when your cramps are particularly bad. She made me feel like I was joining some secret club, a woman’s club. Because of my big sister, the grief I felt about growing up was less acute. Kitty likely won’t have either of her big sisters here, but she does have Ms. Rothschild, and she’s only just across the street. She’s grown so attached to Ms. Rothschild that she’ll probably prefer a period talk from her anyway, truth be told. Even if in the future Daddy and Ms. Rothschild were to break up, I know Ms. Rothschild would never turn her back on Kitty. They’re cemented.

  I’ll miss Kitty’s birthday, too. I’ve never not been at home for her birthday. I’ll have to remind Daddy to carry on our birthday-sign tradition.

  For the first time ever, all of the Song girls will be living truly apart. We three probably won’t ever live in the same house together again. We’ll come home for holidays and school breaks, but it won’t be the same. It won’t be what it was. But I suppose it hasn’t been, not since Margot left for college. The thing is, you get used to it. Before you even realize it’s happening, you get used to things being different, and it will be that way for Kitty too.

  At breakfast I keep stealing glances at her, memorizing every little thing. Her gangly legs, her knobby knees, the way she watches TV with a half smile on her face. She’ll only be as young as this for a little while longer. Before I leave, I should do more special things with her, just the two of us.

  At the commercial break she eyes me. “Why are you staring at me?”

  “No reason. I’m just going to miss you is all.”

  Kitty slurps the rest of her cereal milk. “Can I have your room?”

  “What? No!”

  “Yeah, but you won’t be living here. Why should your room just sit there and go to waste?”

  “Why do you want my room and not Margot’s? Hers is bigger.”

  Practically, she says, “Yours is closer to the bathroom and it’s got better light.”

  I dread change, and Kitty steps right into it. She leans in extra hard. It’s her way of coping. “You’ll miss me when I’m gone, I know it, so quit pretending you won’t,” I say.

  “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be an only child,” she says in a singsong voice. When I frown, she hurries to say, “Only kidding!”

  I know Kitty’s just being Kitty, but I can’t help but feel a tiny stab of hurt. Why would anyone want to be an only child? What’s so great about having no one to warm your feet up against on a cold winter night?

  “You’ll miss me,” I say, more to myself than to her. She doesn’t hear me anyway; her show is back on.

  * * *

  When I get to school, I go straight to Mrs. Duvall’s office to tell her the news. As soon as Mrs. Duvall sees the look on my face, she says, “Come sit down,” and she gets up from behind her desk and closes the door behind me. She sits in the chair next to mine. “Tell me.”

  I take a deep breath. “I didn’t get into UVA.” Now that I’ve said it a few times, you’d think it would be easier to get the words out, but it’s not—it’s worse.

  She heaves a sigh. “I’m surprised. I’m very, very surprised. Your application was strong, Lara Jean. You’re a wonderful student. I did hear that they got a few thousand more applicants this year than in years past. Still, I would’ve thought you’d be wait-listed at the very least.” All I can do is give her a small shrug in response, because I don’t trust my voice right now. She leans forward and hugs me. “I heard from a source in the admissions department that William and Mary will be sending out their decisions today, so buck up for that. And there’s still UNC, and U of R. Where else did you apply? Tech?”

  I shake my head. “JMU.”

  “All great schools. You’ll be fine, Lara Jean. I’m not the least bit worried about you.”

  I don’t say what I’m thinking, which is that we both thought I’d get into UVA, too; instead I just offer a weak smile.

  * * *

  When I walk out, I see Chris at the lockers. I tell her the news about UVA, and she says, “You should come with me and work on a farm in Costa Rica.”

  Stunned, I lean back against the wall and say, “Wait—what?”

  “I told you about this.”

  “No, I don’t think you did.” I’ve known Chris wasn’t going away to college, that she was going to go to community college first and then see. She doesn’t have the grades, or much inclination, really. But she never said anything about Costa Rica.

  “I’m going to take a year off and go work on farms. You work for like five hours, and they give you room and board. It’s amazing.”

  “But what do you know about farming?”

  “Nothing! It doesn’t matter. You just have to be willing to work; they’ll teach you. I could also work at a surfing school in New Zealand, or learn how to make wine in Italy. Basically, I could go anywhere. Doesn’t that sound amazing?”

  “It does. . . .” I try to smile but my face feels tight. “Is your mom okay with it?”

  Chris picks at her thumbnail. “Whatever, I’m eighteen. She doesn’t have a choice.”

  I give her a dubious look. Chris’s mom is tough. I have a hard time picturing her being okay with this plan.

  “I told her I’d do this for a year and then come back and go to PVCC, and then transfer to a four-year college,” she admits. “But who knows what will happen? A year is a long time. Maybe I’ll marry a DJ, or join a band, or start my own bikini line.”

  “That all sounds so glamorous.”

  I want to feel excited for her, but I can’t seem to muster up the feeling. It’s good that Chris has her own thing to look forward to, something that no one else in our class is doing. But it feels like everything all around me is shifting in ways I didn’t expect, when all I want is for things to stand still.

  “Will you write me?” I ask.

  “I’ll Snapchat everything.”

  “I’m not on Snapchat, and besides, that’s not the same thing.” I nudge her with my foot. “Send me a postcard from every new place you go, please.”

  “Who knows if I’ll even have access to a post office? I don’t know how post offices work in Costa Rica.”

  “Well, you can try.”

  “I’ll try,” she agrees.

  I haven’t seen as much of Chris this year. She got a job hostessing at Applebee’s, and she’s become very close with he
r work friends. They’re all older, some of them have kids, and they pay their own bills. I’m pretty sure Chris hasn’t told any of them she still lives at home and pays exactly no bills. When I visited her there last month, one of the servers said something about hoping to make enough that night for rent, and she looked at Chris and said, “You know how it is,” and Chris nodded like she did. When I gave her a questioning look, she pretended not to see.

  The warning bell rings, and we start walking to our first-period classes. “Kavinsky must be freaking out that you didn’t get into UVA,” Chris says, checking her reflection in a glass door we walk past. “So I guess you guys will do long-distance?”

  “Yeah.” My chest gets tight. “I guess.”

  “You should definitely get people in place to keep an eye on the situation,” she says. “You know, like spies? I think I heard Gillian McDougal got in. She’d spy for you.”

  I give her a look. “Chris, I trust Peter.”

  “I know—I’m not talking about him! I’m talking about random girls on his floor. Dropping by his room. You should give him a picture of you to keep him company, if you know what I mean.” She frowns at me. “Do you know what I mean?”

  “Like, a sexy picture? No way!” I start backing away from her. “Look, I’ve gotta go to class.” The last thing I want to do is think about Peter and random girls. I’m still trying to get used to the idea that we won’t be together at UVA this fall.

  Chris rolls her eyes. “Calm down. I’m not talking about a nudie. I would never suggest that for you of all people. What I’m talking about is a pinup-girl shot, but not, like, cheesy. Sexy. Something Kavinsky can hang up in his dorm room.”

  “Why would I want him to hang up a sexy picture of me in his dorm room for all the world to see?”

  Chris reaches out and flicks me on the forehead.

  “Ow!” I shove her away from me and rub the spot where she flicked me. “That hurt!”

  “You deserved it for asking such a dumb question.” She sighs. “I’m talking about preventative measures. A picture of you on his wall is a way for you to mark your territory. Kavinsky’s hot. And he’s an athlete. Do you think other girls will respect the fact that he’s in a long-distance relationship?” She lowers her voice and adds, “With a Virgin Mary girlfriend?”