And then John Ambrose McClaren says one last thing, a thing that makes my heart swell. “I don’t think it was our time then. I guess it isn’t now, either.” John looks over at me, his gaze steady. “But one day maybe it will be.”

55

I’M IN THE GIRLS’ BATHROOM, retying a bow around my ponytail, when Genevieve walks in. My mouth goes dry. She freezes, and then she turns on her heel to go inside a stall. When I say, “You and I are always meeting in the bathroom,” she doesn’t reply. “Gen . . . I’m sorry for the other day.”

Genevieve whirls around and advances on me. “I don’t want your apology.” She grabs my arm. “But if you tell one single person, I swear to God—”

“I wouldn’t!” I cry out. “I won’t! I would never do that.”

She releases my arm. “Because you feel sorry for me, right?” Genevieve laughs bitterly. “You’re such a little phony. Your whole sugary sweet routine makes me sick, you know that? You’ve got everyone fooled, but I know who you really are.”

The venom in her voice stuns me. “What did I ever do to you? Why do you hate me so much?”

“Oh my God. Stop. Quit acting like you don’t know. You need to own the shit you did to me.”

“Wait a minute,” I say. “What I did to you? You’re the one who put a sexy video of me on the Internet! You don’t get to change the story because you feel like it. I’m Éponine; you’re Cosette! Don’t make me out to be the Cosette!”

Her lip curls. “What the fuck are you even talking about?”

“Les Mis!”

“I don’t watch musicals.” She turns like she’s going to leave, and then she stops and says, “I saw you guys that day in seventh grade. I saw you kiss him.”

She was there?

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.”

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 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.