P.S. I Still Love You(97)

She sees my surprise; she revels in it. “I left my jacket down there, and when I went back to get it, I saw the two of you kissing on the couch. You broke the most basic rule of girl code, Lara Jean. Somehow in your mind you’ve made me out to be the villain. But what you should know is I wasn’t being a bitch just for the sake of being a bitch. You deserved it.”

My head is spinning. “If you knew, why did you keep being my friend? You didn’t stop being my friend until later.”

Genevieve shrugs. “Because I liked throwing it in your face. I had him and you didn’t. Believe me, we weren’t friends anymore from that moment on.”

It’s odd that out of all the things she’s ever said to me, this hurts the most. “Just so you know, I didn’t kiss him. He kissed me. I didn’t even think of him that way, not before that kiss.”

Then she says, “The only reason he even kissed you that day was because I wouldn’t. You were second choice.” She runs her hand through her hair. “If you had admitted it back then, I might have forgiven you. Might have. But you never did.”

I swallow. “I wanted to. But it was my first kiss, and it was with the wrong guy, and I knew he didn’t like me.”

It all makes sense. Why she went to such lengths to keep me and Peter apart. Leaning on him, making him prove she was still his first choice. It’s no excuse for all the things she’s done, but I see my part in it now. I should’ve told her about the kiss right away, way back in seventh grade. I knew how much she liked him.

“I’m sorry, Genevieve. I truly am. If I could take it back, I would.” Her eyebrow twitches, and I know she’s not unmoved. Impulsively I say, “We were friends once. Can we—do you think we can ever be friends again?”

She looks at me with such complete and utter disdain, like I’m a child who’s asked for the moon. “Grow up, Lara Jean.”

In a lot of ways, I feel like I have.





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.”