P.S. I Still Love You

by Jenny Han

  “I’ll be right back,” I tell John, and I jump out of the car and run for the field. The guys are warming up. I find Gabe on the sideline lacing his cleats. I call out, “Gabe!”

  He looks up, surprised. “Large! What’s up?”

  Breathlessly I ask him, “Where’s Peter?”

  “I don’t know,” he says, scratching the back of his neck. “He told Coach he had a family emergency. It sounded pretty legit. Kavinsky wouldn’t miss a game if it wasn’t important.”

  I’m already running back to the car. As soon as I’m in, I pant, “Can you drive me to Peter’s?”

  I see her car first. Parked on the street in front of his house. The next thing I see is the two of them, standing together on the street for all to see. He has his arms wrapped around her; she is leaning in to him like she can’t stand on her own two feet. Her face is buried in his chest. He is saying something in her ear, petting her hair tenderly.

  It all happens in the span of seconds, but it feels like time goes in slow-motion, like I’m moving through water. I think I stop breathing; my head goes fuzzy; everything around me blurs. How many times have I seen them stand just like that? Too many to count.

  “Keep driving,” I manage to say to John, and he obeys. He drives right past Peter’s house; they don’t even look up. Thank God they don’t look up. Quietly I say, “Can you take me home?” I can’t even look at John. I hate that he saw too.

  John begins, “It might not be . . .” Then he stops. “It was just a hug, Lara Jean.”

  “I know.” Whatever it was, he missed his game for her.

  We’re almost at my house when he finally asks, “What are you going to do?”

  I’ve been thinking it over this whole ride. “I’m going to tell Peter to come over tonight, and then I’m going to tag him out.”

  “You’re still playing?” He sounds surprised.

  I stare out the window, at all the familiar places. “Sure. I’m going to take him out and then I’m going to take Genevieve out and I’m going to win.”

  “Why do you want to win so badly?” he asks me. “Is it the prize?”

  I don’t answer him. If I open my mouth, I will cry.

  We’re at my house now. I mumble, “Thanks for the ride,” and I get out of the car before John can reply. I run into the house, kick off my shoes, and run up the stairs to my room, where I lie down and stare at the ceiling. I put glow-in-the-dark stars up there years ago, and I scraped most of them off except for one, which hung on tight as a stalactite.

  Star light, star bright, the first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight. I wish not to cry.

  I text Peter: Come over after you’re finished hanging out with Genevieve.

  He writes back one word: Okay.

  Just “okay.” No denials, no explanations or clarifications. All this time I’ve been making excuses for him. I’ve been trusting Peter and not trusting my own gut. Why am I the one making all these concessions, pretending to be okay with something I’m not actually okay with? Just to keep him?

  In the contract we said we’d always tell each other the truth. We said we’d never break each other’s hearts. So I guess two times now he’s broken his word.

  41

  PETER AND I ARE SITTING on my front porch; I can hear the TV on in the living room. Kitty’s watching a movie. There is an interminably long silence between us, only the sound of crickets chirping.

  He speaks first. “It isn’t what you think, Lara Jean; it really isn’t.”

  I take a moment to gather my thoughts together, to string them into something that makes any kind of sense. “When we first started all this, I was really happy just being at home with my sisters and my dad. It was cozy. And then we started hanging out, and it was like . . . it was like you brought me out into the world.” At this his eyes go soft. “At first it was scary, but then I liked it too. Part of me wants to just stay next to you forever. I could easily do that. I could love you forever.”

  He tries to make his voice light. “Then just do that.”

  “I can’t.” I take a shaky breath. “I saw you two. You were holding her; she was in your arms. I saw everything.”

  “If you’d seen everything, you’d know that it wasn’t anything like what you’re saying,” he begins. I just stare at him, and his face falls. “Come on. Don’t look at me like that.”

  “I can’t help it. It’s the only way I can look at you right now.”

  “Gen needed me today, so I was there for her, but just as a friend.”

  “It’s no use, Peter. She laid claim to you a long time ago, and there’s just no room for me here.” My eyesight is going fuzzy with tears. I wipe my eyes with my jacket sleeve. I can’t be here anymore, around him. It’s hurting me too much to look at his face. “I deserve better than that, you know? I deserve . . . I deserve to be someone’s number one girl.”

  “You are.”

  “No, I’m not. She is. You’re still protecting her, her secret, whatever that is. From what, though? From me? What have I ever done to her?”

  He spreads his hands helplessly. “You took me away from her. You became my most important person.”

  “But I’m not, though. That’s the thing. She is.” He sputters and tries to deny it, but there’s no use. How could I believe him when the truth is right in front of me? “You know how I know she’s your most important person? You pick her every time.”

  “That’s bullshit!” he explodes. “When I found out she took that video, I told her that if she ever hurt you again, we were done.” Peter’s still talking, but I don’t hear anything more that comes out of his mouth.

  He knew.

  He knew it was Genevieve who posted that video; he knew and he never told me.

  Peter isn’t talking anymore; he’s peering at me. “Lara Jean? What’s the matter?”

  “You knew?”

  His face goes gray. “No! It’s not like how you think. I haven’t known this whole time.”

  I wet my lips and press them together. “So at some point you found out the truth, and you didn’t tell me.” It’s hard to breathe. “You knew how upset I was, and you kept defending her, and then you found out the truth, and you never told me.”

  Peter starts talking very fast. “Let me explain it. It’s only recently I found out Gen was behind the video. I asked her about it, and she broke down and admitted everything to me. That night at the ski trip, she saw us in the hot tub; she took the video. She’s the one who sent it to Anonybitch and played it at the assembly.”

  I knew it, and I let myself go along with Peter and pretend not to know what I knew. And for what? For him?

  “She’s been really fucked up over stuff she’s going through with her family, and she was jealous, and she took it out on you and me—”

  “Like what? What is she going through?” I don’t ask expecting an answer; I know he won’t tell me. I’m asking to prove a point.

  He looks pained. “You know I can’t tell you. Why do you keep putting me in a position where I have to say no to you?”

  “You put yourself in that position. You have her name, don’t you? In the game, you have her name and she has mine.”

  “Who cares about the stupid game? Covey, we’re talking about us.”

  “I care about the stupid game.” Peter is loyal to her first, me second. It’s first Genevieve, then me. That is the deal. That’s always been the deal. And I’m sick of it. Something clicks in my head. Suddenly I ask him, “Why was Genevieve outside that night at the ski trip? All of her friends were in the lodge.”

  Peter closes his eyes briefly. “Why does it matter?”

  I think back to that night in the woods. How he looked surprised to see me. Startled, even. He wasn’t waiting for me. He was waiting for her. He still is. “If I hadn’t gone out to apologize that night, would you have kissed her?”

  He doesn’t answer right away. “I don’t know.”

  Those three word
s confirm everything for me. They take my breath away. “If I win . . . do you know what I would wish for?” Don’t say it, don’t say it. Don’t say the thing you can’t take back. “I’d wish we never started any of this.” The words echo in my head, in the air.

  He sucks in his breath. His eyes get small; so does his mouth. I’ve hurt him. Is that what I wanted? I thought so, but now, looking at his face, I’m not sure. “You don’t have to win the game to have that, Covey. You can have that right now if you want it.”

  I reach out, put both hands on his chest. My eyes fill. “You’re out. Who do you have?” I already know the answer.

  “Genevieve.”

  I stand up. “Bye, Peter.” And then I walk into my house and shut the door. I don’t look back, not once.

  We broke so easily. Like it was nothing. Like we were nothing. Does that mean it was never meant to be in the first place? That we were an accident of fate? If we were meant to be, how could we both walk away just like that?

  I guess the answer is, we weren’t.

  42

  PETER AND ME, OUR BREAKUP, it’s all so very high school. By that I mean it’s ephemeral. Even this pain will be fleeting, finite. Even the sharp sting of this betrayal I should hold on to and remember and cherish, because it is my first true breakup. It’s all just part of it, the process of falling in love. And it’s not like I thought we’d stay together forever; we’re only sixteen and seventeen. One day I will look back on all of this fondly.

  This is what I keep telling myself, even as tears are filling my eyes, even as I’m lying in bed that night, crying myself to sleep. I cry until my cheeks sting from wiping away my tears. This well of sadness, it starts with Peter but it doesn’t end there.

  Because over and over one thought runs in my head on a loop: I miss my mother. I miss my mother. I miss her so much. If she were here, she would bring me a cup of Night-Night tea, she would sit at the foot of my bed. She would put my head in her lap, and run her fingers through my hair, and whisper in my ear, It will all be fine, Lara Jean. It will all be fine. And I would believe her, because her words were always true.

  Oh, Mommy. How I miss you. Why aren’t you here, when I need you most?

  So far I’ve saved a napkin Peter drew a little sketch of my face on, a ticket stub from the first time we went to the movies, the poem he gave me on Valentine’s Day. The necklace. Of course the necklace. I haven’t been able to bring myself to take it off. Not yet.

  I lie in bed all day Saturday, only getting up for snacks and to let Jamie out to pee in the backyard. I fast-forward to the sad parts of romantic comedies. What I should be doing is coming up with a plan to take Genevieve out, but I can’t. It hurts every time I think of her, of the game, of Peter most of all. I resolve to put it out of my mind until I can really concentrate.

  John texts me once to see if I’m all right, but I can’t bring myself to reply. I put that off for later too.

  The only time I leave the house is on Sunday afternoon to go to Belleview for a party planning committee meeting. With a little cajoling on Stormy’s part, Janette has okayed my USO party idea, and the show must go on, breakups be damned.

  Stormy says the whole retirement community is abuzz about it. She’s particularly excited because there’s been talk that Ferncliff, the other big nursing home in town, might bus over some of their residents. Stormy says they have at least one eligible widower that she knows from the seniors book club at the local library. This gets the other female residents stirred up. “He’s a very distinguished silver,” she keeps telling everyone. “He still drives, too!” I make sure to spread that info around myself. Anything to build excitement.

  At the party everyone will get five “war bonds,” which you can use for a cup of whiskey punch, a little flag pin, or a dance. That was Mr. Morales’s idea. Actually, his exact idea was one war bond for a dance with a lady, but we all slapped him down for being sexist and said that it should be a dance with a man or a lady. Alicia, pragmatic as ever, said, “There will be many more women than men, so it’s the women who will be in charge anyway.”

  I’ve been going from apartment to apartment asking people to lend pictures from the forties if they have them, especially in uniform or at a USO party. One resident sniffed at me and said, “Excuse me, but I was six in 1945!” Hastily I told her that pictures of her parents would be welcome too, of course—but she was already closing the door in my face.

  Scrapbooking to the Oldies has turned into a de facto dance-planning committee. I printed out war bonds, and Mr. Morales is using my paper cutter to cut them. Maude, who is new to the group and is Internet savvy, is clipping news articles from the war to decorate the refreshments table. Her friend Claudia is working on the playlist.

  Alicia will have a little table of her own. She’s making a paper-crane garland, all different-colored papers, lilac and peach and turquoise and floral. Stormy balked at the deviation from the red, white, and blue theme, but Alicia held firm and I backed her up. Classy as always, her pictures of Japanese Americans in internment camps are in fancy silver frames.

  “Those pictures are really going to bring the mood down,” Stormy stage-whispers to me.

  Alicia whirls around. “These pictures are meant to educate the ignorant.”

  Stormy gathers herself up to her full five feet three inches, five-six in heels. “Alicia, did you just call me ignorant?” I wince. Stormy’s been putting a lot of work into this party, and she’s been a little extra Stormy lately.

  I just can’t take another fight between them right now. I’m about to plead for peace when Alicia fixes Stormy with a steely look and says, “If the muumuu fits.”

  Stormy and I both gasp. Then Stormy stalks over to Alicia’s table and sweeps Alicia’s paper cranes to the floor with a flourish. Alicia screams, and I gasp again. Everyone else in the room looks up. “Stormy!”

  “You’re taking her side? She just called me ignorant! Stormy Sinclair might be a lot of things, but I am not ignorant.”

  “I’m not taking anybody’s side,” I say, bending down to pick up the paper cranes.

  “If you’re taking a side, it should be mine,” Alicia says. She thrusts her chin in Stormy’s direction. “She thinks she’s some grand dame, but she is a child, throwing a tantrum over a party.”

  “A child!” Stormy shrieks.

  “Will you two please stop fighting?” To my mortification, tears spurt out the corners of my eyes. “I can’t take it today.” My voice trembles. “I really just can’t.”

  They exchange a look, and then they both rush to my side. “Darling, what’s wrong?” Stormy croons. “It must be a boy.”

  “Sit, sit,” Alicia says. They lead me over to the couch and sit on either side of me.

  “Everybody, get out!” Stormy yells, and the others scatter. “Now you tell us what’s wrong.”

  I wipe my eyes with the corner of my shirtsleeve. “Peter and I broke up.” It’s the first time I’ve said the words out loud.

  Stormy gasps. “You and Mr. Handsome broke up! Was it over another boy?” She looks hopeful, and I know she is thinking of John.

  “It wasn’t over another boy. It’s complicated.”

  “Darling, it’s never that complicated,” Stormy says. “In my day—”

  Alicia glares at her. “Will you just let her talk?”

  “Peter never got over his ex-girlfriend, Genevieve,” I say, sniffling. “She was the one who posted that video of us in the hot tub, and Peter found out and he didn’t tell me.”

  “Perhaps he wanted to spare your feelings,” Alicia says.

  Vehemently Stormy shakes her head, so hard her earrings whoosh. “The boy is a dog, pure and simple. He ought to treat you like a queen, not this other girl Genevieve.”

  Alicia accuses, “You just want Lara Jean to date your great-grandson.”

  “So what if I do!” With a gleam in her eye she says, “Say, Lara Jean. Have you got any plans tonight?”

  At that we all
laugh. “I can’t think about any boy but Peter right now,” I say. “Do you still remember your first love?”

  Stormy’s had so many—could she possibly? But she nods. “Garrett O’Leary. I was fifteen and he was eighteen and we only ever had a dance, but the way I felt when he looked at me . . .” She shivers.

  I look to my left at Alicia. “And yours was your husband, Phillip, right?”

  To my surprise she shakes her head. “My first love was named Albert. He was my older brother’s best friend. I thought I would marry him. But it was not to be. I met my Phillip.” She smiles. “Phillip was the love of my life. And yet I never forgot Albert. How young I was once! Stormy, can you believe we were ever so young?”

  Stormy does not give her usual blithe reply. Her eyes go moist, and as softly as I’ve ever heard her speak she says, “It’s all a million lifetimes ago. And yet.”

  “And yet,” Alicia echoes.

  They both smile at me fondly, with such true and genuine affection that new tears come to my eyes. “What will I do now that Peter’s not my boyfriend anymore?” I wonder out loud.

  “You’ll just do what you did before he was your boyfriend,” Alicia says. “You’ll go about your day, and you will miss him at first, but over time it will ease. It will lessen.” She reaches out, touches her papery hand to my cheek. A smile plays at her lips. “All you need is time, and you, little one, have all the time in the world.”

  It’s a comforting thought, but I don’t know if I believe it is true, not completely. I think that time might be different for young people. The minutes longer, stronger, more vibrant. All I know is that every minute without him feels interminably long, like I’m waiting, just waiting for him to come back to me. I, Lara Jean, know he isn’t, but my heart doesn’t seem to understand it’s over.

  After, energies renewed, tears dried, I am with Janette in her office, going over party details. When she offhandedly mentions the sitting room, I freeze. “Janette, the sitting room isn’t going to be big enough.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you. The main activities room is booked for bingo. They have a standing Friday night reservation.”