P.S. I Still Love You(95)

Daddy startles. “She did? Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Well . . . then maybe I will ask her out. For a coffee, or a drink. The Sound of Music is a bit long for a first date.”

Kitty and I both whoop and high-five each other.





54


BIRTHDAY BREAKFAST AT THE DINER was a bit of a tradition with Margot and Josh and me. If my birthday was on a weekday, we’d wake up early and go before school. I’d order blueberry pancakes, and Margot would put a candle in them, and they’d sing.

The day of my seventeenth birthday, Josh sends me a Happy Bday text, but I get that we won’t be going to the diner. He has a girlfriend now, and it would be weird, especially with no Margot. The text is enough.

For breakfast Daddy makes chorizo scrambled eggs, and Kitty’s made me a big card with pictures of Jamie pasted all over it. Margot video-chats me to wish me happy birthday and to tell me my present should be arriving that afternoon or the next.

At school Chris and Lucas put a candle in the donuts they got out of the vending machine and they sing me “Happy Birthday” in the hallway. Chris gives me a new lipstick: red for when I want to be bad, she says. Peter doesn’t say anything to me in chemistry class; I doubt he knows it’s my birthday, and besides, what could I even expect him to say after the way things ended between us? Still, it’s a nice day, uneventful in its niceness.

But then, as I’m leaving school, I see John parked out front. He’s standing in front of his car; he hasn’t seen me yet. In this bright afternoon light, the sun warms John’s blond head like a halo, and suddenly I’m struck with the visceral memory of loving him from afar, studiously, ardently. I so admired his slender hands, the slope of his cheekbones. Once upon a time I knew his face by heart. I had him memorized.

My steps quicken. “Hi!” I say, waving. “How are you here right now? Don’t have you school today?”

“I left early,” he says.

“You? John Ambrose McClaren cut school?”

He laughs. “I brought you something.” John pulls a box out of his coat pocket and thrusts it at me. “Here.”

I take it from him, it’s heavy and substantial in my palm. “Should I . . . should I open it right now?”

“If you want.”

I can feel his eyes on me as I rip off the paper, open the white box. He’s anxious. I ready a smile on my face so he’ll know I like it, no matter what it is. Just the fact that he thought to buy me a present is so . . . dear.

Nestled in white tissue paper is a snow globe the size of an orange, with a brass bottom. A boy and girl are ice-skating inside. She’s wearing a red sweater; she has on earmuffs. She’s making a figure eight, and he’s admiring her. It’s a moment caught in amber. One perfect moment, preserved under glass. Just like that night it snowed in April.

“I love it,” I say, and I do, so much. Only a person who really knew me could give me this gift. To feel so known, so understood. It’s such a wonderful feeling, I could cry. It’s something I’ll keep forever. This moment, and this snow globe.

I get on my tiptoes and hug him, and he wraps his arms around me tight and then tighter. “Happy birthday, Lara Jean.”

I’m about to get into his car when I see Peter striding over to us. “Hold up a second,” he says, a pleasant half smile on his face.

Warily I say, “Hey.”

“Hey, Kavinsky,” John says.

Peter gives him a nod. “I didn’t get a chance to say happy birthday, Covey.”

“But—you saw me in chem class . . . ,” I say.

“Well, you left in a hurry. I have something for you. Open up your hands.” He takes the snow globe out of my hand and gives it to John. “Here, can you hold this?”

I look from Peter to John. Now I’m nervous.

“Hold your hands out,” Peter prompts. I look at John one more time before I obey, and Peter pulls something out of his pocket and drops it into my palms. My heart locket. “It’s yours.”

Slowly I say, “I thought you returned the necklace to your mom’s store.”

“Nope. Wouldn’t look right on another girl.”

I blink. “Peter, I can’t accept this.” I try to give it back, but he shakes his head; he won’t take it. “Peter, please.”

“No. When I get you back, I’m gonna put that necklace back around your neck and pin you.” He tries to hold my eyes with his own. “Like the 1950s. Remember, Lara Jean?”