56

I’M LYING DOWN ON MY back in the tree house, looking out the window. The moon is carved so
thin, it’s a thumbnail clipping in the sky. Tomorrow, no more tree house. I’ve barely thought about this
place, and now that it’s disappearing, I’m sad. It’s like all childhood toys, I suppose. It doesn’t
become important until you don’t have it anymore. But it’s more than just a tree house. It’s good-bye,
and it feels like the end of everything.
As I sit up, I see it, purple string poking out of a floorboard, sprouting forth like a blade of grass. I
tug on the end and it pulls free. It’s Genevieve’s friendship bracelet, the one I gave to her.
Believe me, we weren’t friends anymore from that moment on.
That isn’t true. We still had sleepovers, birthdays; she still cried to me the time she thought her
parents were getting divorced. She couldn’t have hated me that whole time. I won’t believe it. This
friendship bracelet proves it.
Because it’s what she put in the time capsule, her most treasured thing, just like it was mine. And
then, at the party, she took it out, she hid it; she didn’t want me to see. But now I know. I was
important to her then too. We were true friends once. Tears spring to my eyes. Good-bye, Genevieve,
good-bye middle school years, good-bye tree house and everything that was important to me that one
hot summer.
People come in and out of your life. For a time they are your world; they are everything. And then
one day they’re not. There’s no telling how long you will have them near. A year ago I could not have
imagined that Josh would no longer be a constant for me. I couldn’t have conceived of how hard it
would be to not see Margot every day, how lost I would feel without her—or how easily Josh could
slip away, without me even realizing. It’s the good-byes that are hard.

“Covey?” Peter’s voice calls up to me from outside, down below in the dark.
I sit up. “I’m here.”
He climbs up the ladder quickly, ducking so his head doesn’t hit the ceiling. He crawls over to the
tree-house wall opposite from me, so we are sitting on either side. “They’re bulldozing the tree house
tomorrow,” I tell him.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. They’re going to put up a gazebo. You know, like in The Sound of Music?”
Peter squints one eye at me. “Why did you call me over here, Lara Jean? I know it wasn’t to talk
about The Sound of Music.”
“I know about Genevieve. Her secret, I mean.”
He leans his back against the tree-house wall, and his head drops back with a slight thud. “Her
dad’s an asshole. He’s cheated on her mom before. Just never with someone so young.” He speaks in
a rush, like it’s a relief to finally say the words out loud. “When things got really bad with her
parents, Gen would find ways to hurt herself. I had to be the one to protect her. That was my job.
Sometimes it scared me, but I liked being, I don’t know... needed.” Then he sighs and says, “I know