she can be manipulative—I’ve always known that. In some ways it was easier for me to default back
to what I knew. I think maybe I was scared.”
My breath catches. “Of what?”
“Of disappointing you.” Peter looks away. “I know sex is a big deal to you. I didn’t want to mess it
up. You’re so innocent, Lara Jean. And I have all this shit in my past.”
I want to say, I never cared about your past. But that isn’t true. It’s only then that I realize: Peter
wasn’t the one who needed to get over Genevieve. It was me. All this time with Peter, I’ve been
comparing myself to her, all the ways I don’t measure up. All the ways our relationship pales next to
theirs. I’m the one who couldn’t let her go. I’m the one who didn’t give us a chance.
Suddenly he asks, “What do you wish for, Lara Jean? Now that you’ve won. Congrats, by the way.
You did it.”
I feel a rush of emotion in my chest. “I wish that things could go back to the way they were
between us. That you could be you and I could be me, and we’d have fun with each other, and it
would be a really sweet first romance that I’ll remember my whole life.” I feel like I’m blushing as I
say this last bit, but I’m glad I did, because it makes Peter’s eyes go soft and caramelly at me for just
a second, and I have to look away.
“Don’t talk like it’s doomed already.”
“I don’t mean to. The first isn’t necessarily the last, but it will always be the first, and that’s
special. Firsts are special.”
“You’re not first,” Peter says. “But you’re the most special to me, because you’re the girl I love,
Lara Jean.”
Love. He said “love.” I feel dizzy. I am a girl who is loved, by a boy, and not just her sisters and
father and dog. A boy with beautiful eyebrows and a sleight of hand. “I’ve been going crazy without
you.” He scrubs the back of his head. “Can’t we just—”
“You’re saying I drive you crazy too?” I interrupt.
He groans. “I’m saying you drive me more crazy than any girl I’ve ever met.”
I crawl toward him, and I reach out and trace my finger along his eyebrow that feels like silk. I
say, “In the contract we said we wouldn’t break each other’s hearts. What if we do it again?”
Fiercely he says, “What if we do? If we’re so guarded, it’s not going to be anything. Let’s do it
fucking for real, Lara Jean. Let’s go all in. No more contract. No more safety net. You can break my
heart. Do whatever you want with it.”
I put my hand to his chest, over his heart. I can feel it beating. I let my hand fall away. His heart is
mine, just mine. I believe it now. Mine to protect and care for, mine to break.
So much of love is chance. There’s something scary and wonderful about that. If Kitty had never
sent those letters, if I hadn’t gone to the hot tub that night, it might’ve been him and Gen. But she did
send those letters, and I did go out there. It could have happened lots of ways. But this is the way it
happened. This is the path we took. This is our story.
I know now that I don’t want to love or be loved in half measures. I want it all, and to have it all,
you have to risk it all.
So I take Peter’s hand; I put it on my heart. I tell him, “You have to take good care of this, because
it’s yours.”
He looks at me in such a way that I know for sure—he’s never looked at another girl quite like
this.
singke
(singke)
#1