P.S. I Still Love You (7 page)

9

THE NEXT MORNING BEFORE SCHOOL
, we’re packing up the car so Daddy can take Margot to the airport, and I keep looking up at Josh’s bedroom window, wondering if he’ll come down and say good-bye. It’s the least he can do. But his lights are off, so he must still be asleep.

Ms. Rothschild comes out with her dog while Margot’s saying her good-byes to Jamie Fox-Pickle. As soon as he sees her, he leaps out of Margot’s arms and makes a run for it across the street. Daddy chases after him. Jamie is barking and jumping all over Ms. Rothschild’s poor old dog Simone, who ignores him. Jamie is so excited he pees on Ms. Rothschild’s green Hunter boots, and Daddy’s apologizing, but she’s laughing. “It’ll wash right off,” I hear her say. She looks pretty, her brown hair is in a high ponytail, and she’s in yoga pants and a puffy bomber jacket that I think Genevieve has.

“Hurry, Daddy!” Margot calls out. “I need to be at the airport three hours early.”

“Three’s a bit much,” I say. “Two hours is plenty.” We watch as Daddy tries to scoop up Jamie and Jamie tries to wriggle away. Ms. Rothschild snatches him up with one arm and plants a kiss on his head.

“With international flights you’re supposed to be at the airport three hours early. I have bags to check¸ Lara Jean.”

Kitty doesn’t say anything; she’s just gazing across the street at all the dog drama.

When Daddy returns with a squirming Jamie in his arms, he says, “We’d better get out of here before Jamie causes any more trouble.” We three hug each other fiercely, and Margot whispers to me to be strong, and I nod, and then she and Daddy are gone for the airport.

It’s still early, earlier than we would’ve woken up on a school morning, so I make Kitty and me banana pancakes. She’s still lost in thought. Twice I have to ask her if she wants one pancake or two. I make a few extra and wrap them in aluminum foil to share with Peter on the way to school. I do the dishes; I even send Janette over at Belleview a feeler email, and she writes back right away. Margot’s replacement quit a month ago, so it’s perfect timing, she says. Come in on Saturday and we’ll talk about your responsibilities.

I feel like finally, I’ve gotten it together: I’ve hit my stride. I can do this.

So when I walk into school that cold January morning, holding Peter’s hand, full on banana pancakes, with a new job and wearing Margot’s Fair Isle sweater she left behind, I am feeling good. Great, even.

Peter wants to stop in the computer lab to print out his English paper, so that’s our first stop. He logs in, and I gasp out loud when I see the wallpaper.

Someone has taken a still of the hot tub video, of me in Peter’s lap in my red flannel nightgown, skirt hitched up around my thighs, and across the top it reads
HOT HOT TUB SEX.
And on the bottom—
YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG.

“What the hell?” Peter mutters, looking around the computer lab. Nobody looks up. He goes to the next computer—same picture, different caption.
SHE DOESN’T KNOW ABOUT SHRINKAGE
on top.
HE’S HAPPY WITH WHAT HE CAN GET
across the bottom.

We are a meme.

Over the next couple of days, the picture shows up all over the place. On other people’s Instagrams, on their Facebook walls.

There’s one with a dancing shark photoshopped in. Another one where our heads have been replaced by cat heads.

And then one that just says
AMISH BIKINI
.

Peter’s lacrosse friends think it’s hilarious, but they swear they don’t have anything to do with it. At the lunch table Gabe protests, “I don’t even know how to use Photoshop!”

Peter stuffs half his sandwich into his mouth. “Fine, then who’s doing it? Jeff Bardugo? Carter?”

“Dude, I don’t know,” Darrell says. “It’s a meme. A lot of people could be throwing their hat in the ring.”

“You have to admit, the cat-head one was pretty funny,” Gabe says. Then he turns to me and says, “My bad, Large.”

I stay quiet. The cat heads
were
kind of funny. But overall it is not. Peter tried to laugh the first one off, but now we are a few days in and I can tell it’s bothering him. He isn’t used to being the butt of the joke. I suppose I’m not either, but only because I’m not used to people paying this much attention to anything I’m doing. But ever since I’ve been with Peter, people are, and I wish they weren’t.

10

THAT AFTERNOON, WE HAVE A
junior class assembly in the auditorium. Our class president, Reena Patel, is onstage giving a PowerPoint presentation on the state of the union—how much money we’ve fund-raised for prom, the proposal for senior class trip. I’m sitting low in my seat, relieved for the respite, where people aren’t looking at me, whispering and making judgments.

She clicks on the last slide, and that’s when it happens. “Me So Horny” blasts out of the speakers and my video, mine and Peter’s, flashes on the projector screen. Someone has taken the video from Anonybitch’s Instagram and put their own soundtrack to it. They’ve edited it too, so I bop up and down on Peter’s lap at triple speed to the beat.

Oh no no no no. Please, no.

Everything happens at once. People are shrieking and laughing and pointing and going “Oooh!” Mr. Vasquez is jumping up to unplug the projector, and then Peter’s running onstage, grabbing the microphone out of a stunned Reena’s hand.

“Whoever did that is a piece of garbage. And not that it’s anybody’s fucking business, but Lara Jean and I did not have sex in the hot tub.”

My ears are ringing, and people are twisting around in their seats to look at me and then shifting back around to look at Peter.

“All we did was kiss, so fuck off!” Mr. Vasquez, the junior class advisor, is trying to grab the mic back from Peter, but Peter manages to maintain control of it. He holds the mic up high and yells out, “I’m gonna find whoever did this and kick their ass!” In the scuffle, he drops the mic. People are cheering and laughing. Peter’s being frog-marched off the stage, and he frantically looks out into the audience. He’s looking for me.

The assembly breaks up then, and everyone starts filing out the doors, but I stay low in my seat. Chris comes and finds me, face alight. She grabs me by the shoulders. “Ummm, that was crazy! He freaking dropped the F bomb twice!”

I am still in a state of shock, maybe. A video of me and Peter hot and heavy was just on the projector screen, and everyone saw. Mr. Vasquez, seventy-year-old Mr. Glebe who doesn’t even know what Instagram is. The only passionate kiss of my life and everybody saw.

Chris shakes my shoulders. “Lara Jean! Are you okay?” I nod mutely, and she releases me. “He’s kicking whoever did it’s ass? I’d love to see that!” She snorts and throws her head back like a wild pony. “I mean, the boy’s an idiot if he thinks for one second it wasn’t Gen who posted that video. Like, wow, those are some serious blinders, y’know?” Chris stops short and examines my face. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Everybody saw us.”

“Yeah . . . that sucked. I’m sure that was Gen’s handiwork. She must’ve gotten one of her little minions to sneak it onto Reena’s PowerPoint.” Chris shakes her head in disgust. “She’s such a bitch. I’m glad Peter set the record straight, though. Like, I hate to give him credit, but that was an act of chivalry. No guy has ever set the record straight for me.”

I know she’s thinking of that boy from freshman year, the one who told everyone that Chris had sex with him in the locker room. And I’m thinking of Mrs. Duvall, of what she said before. She would probably lump Chris in with the party girls, the girls who sleep around, the girls who aren’t “better than that.” She would be wrong. We’re all the same.

After school, I’m walking out of class when my phone buzzes in my purse. It’s Peter.

I’m out on parole. Meet me at my car!

I race to the parking lot, where Peter is in his car waiting for me with the heat on. Grinning at me, he says, “Aren’t you going to kiss your man? I just got released from prison.”

“Peter! This isn’t a joke. Are you suspended?”

He smirks. “Nah. I sweet-talked my way out of it. Principal Lochlan loves me. Still, I could’ve been. If it had been anybody else . . .”

Oh, Peter. “Please don’t brag to me right now.”

“When I came out of Lochlan’s office, there were a bunch of sophomore girls waiting for me to give me a standing O. They were like, ‘Kavinsky, you’re so romantic.’” He hoots, and I give him a look. He pulls me to his side. “Hey, they know I’m taken. There’s only one girl I want to see in an Amish bikini.”

I laugh; I can’t help it. Peter loves attention, and I hate to be another girl who gives it to him, but he makes it really hard sometimes. Besides, it
was
kind of romantic.

He plants a kiss on my cheek, nuzzles against my face. “Didn’t I tell you I would take care of it, Covey?”

“You did,” I admit, patting his hair.

“So did I do a good job?”

“You did.” That’s all it takes for him to be happy, me telling him that he did a good job. He’s smiley all the way home. But I’m still thinking about it.

I beg off the lacrosse party I was supposed to go to with Peter tonight. I say it’s because I have to prepare for my meeting with Janette tomorrow, but we both know it’s more than that. He could call me on it, remind me that we promised to always tell the truth to each other, but he doesn’t. He knows me well enough to know that I just need to burrow in my little hobbit hole for a while, and when I’m ready, I’ll come out again and be all right.

That night I bake chai sugar cookies with cinnamon-eggnog icing—they’re like a hug in your mouth. Baking calms me; it’s stabilizing. It’s what I do when I don’t want to think about anything hard. It is an activity that requires very little from you—you just follow the directions, and then at the end you have created something. From ingredients to an actual dessert. It’s like magic. Poof, deliciousness.

After midnight, I’ve set the cookies on the cooling rack and put on my cat pajamas, and I’m climbing into bed to read when there’s a knock at my window. I think it’s Chris, and I go to the window to check and see if I’ve locked it, but it’s not—it’s Peter! I push the window up. “Oh my God, Peter! What are you doing here?” I whisper, my heart pounding. “My dad’s home!”

Peter climbs in. He’s wearing a navy beanie on his head and a thermal with a puffy vest. Taking off the hat, he grins and says, “Shh. You’re gonna wake him up.”

I run to my door and lock it. “Peter! You can’t be here!” I am equal parts panicky and excited. I don’t know if a boy has ever been in my room before, not since Josh, and that was ages ago.

He’s already taking off his shoes. “Just let me stay for a few minutes.”

I cross my arms because I’m not wearing a bra and say, “If it’s only a few minutes, why are you taking off your shoes?”

He dodges this question. Plopping down on my bed, he says, “Hey, why aren’t you wearing your Amish bikini? It’s so hot.” I move to slap him upside the head, and he grabs my waist and hugs me to him. He buries his head in my stomach like a little boy. His voice muffled, he says, “I’m sorry all this is happening because of me.”

I touch the top of his head; his hair feels soft and silky against my fingers. “It’s okay, Peter. I know it’s not your fault.” I glance at my moonbeam alarm clock. “You can stay for fifteen minutes, but then you have to go.” Peter nods and releases me. I sink down on the bed next to him and put my head on his shoulder. I hope the minutes go slow. “How was the party?”

“Boring without you.”

“Liar.”

He laughs an easy kind of laugh. “What did you bake tonight?”

“How do you know I baked?”

Peter breathes me in. “You smell like sugar and butter.”

“Chai sugar cookies with eggnog icing.”

“Can I take some with me?”

I nod, and we lean our backs against the wall. He slides his arm around me, safe and secure. “Twelve minutes left,” I say into his shoulder, and I feel rather than see him smile.

“Then let’s make it good.” We start to kiss, and I’ve definitely never kissed a boy in my bed before. This is brand-new. I doubt I’ll ever be able to think of my bed the same way again. Between kisses he says, “How much time do I have left?”

I glance over at my clock. “Seven minutes.” Maybe I should tack on an extra five . . .

“Can we lie down, then?” he suggests.

I shove him in the shoulder. “Peter!”

“I just want to hold you for a little bit! If I was going to try to do more, I’d need more than seven minutes, trust me.”

So we lie down, my back to his chest, him curved around me, his arms slung around mine. He snuggles his chin into the hollow between my neck and my shoulder. It might be my favorite thing we’ve ever done. I like it so much I have to keep reminding myself to be vigilant that we don’t fall asleep. I want to close my eyes but I keep them trained on my clock.

“Spooning’s the freaking best,” he sighs, and I wish he didn’t say it, because it makes me think of how many times he must have held Genevieve just like this.

At the fifteen-minute mark, I sit up so fast he jumps. I clap him on the shoulder. “Time to go, buddy.”

His mouth falls into a sulk. “Come on, Covey!”

I shake my head, resolute.

If you hadn’t made me think of Genevieve, I would’ve given you five minutes more.

After I send Peter off with a bag of cookies, I lie back down and close my eyes and imagine his arms are still around me, and that’s how I fall asleep.