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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