Of beautiful Lara Jean.
And stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of beautiful Lara Jean.I touch my hand to my lips. Beautiful Lara Jean! I can’t even believe it. “This is my favorite thing
anyone has ever done for me. I could squeeze you to death right now I’m so happy.” To picture him,
sitting at his desk at home, scribbling away with a pen and paper, endears him to me so completely. It
gives me shivers. Currents of electricity from my scalp down to my toes.
“Really? You like it?”
“I love it!” I throw my arms around him and squeeze with all my might. I will put this valentine in
my hatbox, and when I’m old like Stormy, I will take it out and look at it and remember this exact
moment. Forget Genevieve; forget everything. Peter Kavinsky wrote me a poem.
“That’s not the only present I brought you. It’s not even the best one.” He peels away from me and
pulls a little velvet jewelry box out of his backpack. I gasp. Pleased, he says, “Hurry up and open it
already.”
“Is it a pin?”
“It’s better.”
My hands fly to my mouth. It’s my necklace, the heart locket from his mom’s antique store, the very
same necklace I admired for so many months. At Christmas when Daddy said the necklace had been
sold, I thought it was gone from my life forever. “I can’t believe it,” I whisper, touching the diamond
chip in the middle.
“Here, let me put it on for you.”
I lift my hair up, and Peter comes around and fastens the necklace around my neck. “Can I even
accept this?” I wonder aloud. “It was really expensive, Peter! Like, really really expensive.”
He laughs. “I know how much it cost. Don’t worry, my mom cut me a deal. I had to sign over a
bunch of weekends to driving the van around picking up furniture for the store, but you know, no
biggie. It’s whatever, as long as you’re into it.”
I touch the necklace. “I am! I’m so, so into it.” Surreptitiously I look around the cafeteria. It’s a
petty thought, a small thought, but I wish Genevieve were here to see this.
“Wait, where’s my valentine?” Peter asks me.
“It’s in your locker,” I say. Now I’m sort of wishing I didn’t listen to Kitty and let myself go a
little overboard this first Valentine’s Day with a boyfriend. With Peter. Oh, well. At least there are
the cherry turnovers still warm in my backpack. I’ll give them all to him. Sorry, Chris and Lucas and
Gabe.
I can’t stop looking at myself in this necklace. At school, I wear it over my sweater, so all can see
and admire. That night I show it to Daddy, to Kitty, to Margot over video chat. As a joke I show it off
to Jamie Fox-Pickle. Everyone’s impressed. I don’t take it off, ever: I wear it in the shower; I wear it
to sleep.
It’s like in Little House in the Big Woods, when Laura got a rag doll for Christmas. It had black
button eyes, and berry-stained lips and cheeks. Red flannel stockings and a pink-and-blue calico
dress. Laura couldn’t take her eyes off of it. She held that doll tight and forgot the rest of the world.