AFTER PETER DROPS ME OFF, I run inside to tell Margot and Kitty everything, and I feel like a purse bulging with gold coins. I can’t wait to spill.
Kitty’s lying on the couch, watching TV with Jamie Fox-Pickle in her lap, and she scrambles up when I come through the door. In a hushed voice she says, “Gogo’s crying.”
My enthusiasm dries up instantly. “What! Why?”
“I think she went over to Josh’s and they had a talk and it wasn’t good.
You should go check on her.”
Oh no. This isn’t how it was supposed to go for them. They were supposed to get back together, like Peter and me.
Kitty settles back on the couch, remote in hand, her sisterly duty fulfilled. “How did it go with Peter?”
“Great,” I say. “Really great.” The smile comes to my face without me even intending it, and I quickly wipe it away, out of respect for Margot.
I go to the kitchen and make Margot a cup of Night-Night tea, two tablespoons of honey, like Mommy used to make us for bedtime. For a second I contemplate adding a splash of whiskey because I saw it on a Victorian show on PBS—the maids would put whiskey in the lady of the manor’s hot beverage to calm her nerves. I know Margot drinks at college, but she already has a hangover, and besides, I doubt Daddy would be into it. So I just put the tea, sans whiskey, in my favorite mug, and I send Kitty upstairs with it. I tell her to act adorable. I say she should first give Margot the tea and then snuggle with her for at least five minutes. Which Kitty balks at, because Kitty only cuddles if there’s something in it for her, and also because I know it frightens her to see Margot upset. “I’ll just bring her Jamie to cuddle with,” Kitty says.
Selfish!
When I go to Margot’s room with a piece of buttered cinnamon toast, Kitty’s nowhere in sight and neither is Jamie. Margot’s curled up on her side, crying. “It’s really over, Lara Jean,” she whispers. “It’s been over, but now I know it’s over for good. I th-thought that if I wanted to get back together, he would too, but he d-doesn’t.” I curl up next to her, my forehead pressed to her back. I can feel every breath she takes. She weeps into her pillow, and I scratch her shoulder blades the way she likes. The thing to know about Margot is she never cries, so seeing her cry sets my world, and this house, off its axis. Everything feels tilted somehow. “He says that long distance is too h-hard, that I was right to break up with him in the first place. I missed him so much, and it seems like he didn’t miss me at all.”
I bite my lip guiltily. I was the one who encouraged her to talk to Josh. This is partly my fault. “Margot, he did miss you. He missed you like crazy. I would look out the window during French class, and I would see him outside on the bleachers eating his lunch alone. It was depressing.”
She sniffles. “Did he really?”
“Yes.” I don’t understand what’s the matter with Josh. He acted like he was so in love with her; he practically went into a depression when she was gone. And now this?
Sighing, she says, “I think . . . I think I just still really love him.”
“You do?” Love. Margot said “love.” I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say she loved Josh before. Maybe “in love,” but never “love.”
Margot wipes her eyes with her sheet. “The whole reason I broke up with him was so I wouldn’t be that girl crying over her boyfriend, and now that’s exactly what I am. It’s pathetic.”
“You’re the least pathetic person I know, Gogo,” I tell her.
Margot stops sniffling and rolls around so we’re lying face to face. Frowning at me, she says, “I didn’t say I was pathetic. I said crying over a boy was.”
“Oh,” I say. “Well, I still don’t think it’s pathetic to cry over someone. It just means you care about them deeply and you’re sad.”
“I’ve been crying so much I feel like my eyes look like . . . like shriveled-up raisins. Do they?” Margot squints at me.
“They are swollen,” I admit. “Your eyes just aren’t used to crying. I have an idea!” I leap out of bed and run downstairs to the kitchen. I fill a cereal bowl with ice and two silver spoons and come running back. “Lie back
down,” I instruct, and Margot obeys. “Close your eyes.” I put a spoon over each eye.
“Does this really work?” “I saw it in a magazine.”
When the spoons warm up against her skin, I dip them back into the ice and back onto her face, over and over again. She asks me to tell her what happened with Peter, so I do, but I leave out all the kissing because it feels in poor taste in light of her own heartbreak. She sits up and says, “You don’t have to pretend to like Peter just to spare my feelings.” Margot swallows painfully, like she has a sore throat. “If any part of you still likes Josh . . . if he likes you . . .” I gasp in horror. I open my mouth to deny it, to say that it feels like forever ago already, but she silences me with her hand. “It would be really hard, but I wouldn’t want to stand in the way of that, you know? I mean it, Lara Jean. You can tell me.”
I’m so relieved, so grateful she’s bringing it up. I rush to say, “Oh my gosh, I don’t like Josh, Gogo. Not like that. Not at all. And he doesn’t like me like that either. I think . . . I think we were both just missing you. Peter’s the one I like.” Under the blanket I find Margot’s hand and link my pinky with hers. “Sister swear.”
She swallows hard. “Then I guess there’s no secret reason for him not wanting to get back together. I guess it’s as simple as he just doesn’t want to be with me anymore.”
“No, it’s as simple as you’re in Scotland and he’s in Virginia and it’s too hard. You were wise to break it off when you did. Wise and brave and right.”
Doubt creeps across her face like dark shadows, and then she shakes her head and her expression clears. “Enough about me and Josh. We’re yesterday’s news. Tell me more about Peter. Please, it’ll make me feel better.” She lies back down, and I put the spoons back on her eyes.
“Well, tonight at first he was very cool with me, very blasé blasé—” “No, go all the way back to the beginning.”
So I go back further: I tell her about our pretend relationship, the hot tub, everything. She keeps taking the spoons off so she can look at me as I tell her. But before long her eyes do look less puffy. And I feel lighter—giddy, even. I’ve kept all these things secret from her for months, and now she knows everything that’s happened since she’s been gone, and I feel so close
to her again. You can’t be close to someone, not truly, with secrets in between you.
Margot clears her throat. She hesitates and then asks, “So, how does he kiss?”
I’m blushing. I tap my fingers on my lips before I say, “He kisses like . .
. like it could be his job.”
Margot giggles and lifts the spoons off her eyes. “Like a male prostitute?”
I grab one of the spoons and tap her on the forehead with it like a gong.
“Ow!” She snatches for the other spoon, but I’m too quick and I’ve got them both. We’re both laughing like crazy as I try to get in another gong on her forehead.
“Margot . . . did it hurt when you had sex?” I’m careful not to say Josh’s name. It’s strange, because Margot and I have never talked about sex before in any kind of real way, because neither of us had a point of reference. But now she does and I don’t, and I want to know what she knows.
“Umm. I mean, the first couple of times, a little.” Now she’s the one who’s blushing. “Lara Jean, I can’t talk about this with you. It’s too weird. Can’t you just ask Chris?”
“No, I want to hear it from you. Please, Gogo. You have to tell me everything about it so I’ll know. I don’t want to look like a fool when I do it the first time.”
“It’s not like Josh and I had sex hundreds of times! I’m not an expert. He’s the only person I’ve done it with. But if you’re thinking about having sex with Peter, make sure you’re careful and you use a condom and everything.” I nod quickly. This is when she’ll get to the good stuff. “And just be really sure, as sure as you can be. And make sure he knows to be really gentle and caring with you, so it’s special and it’s something you can look back on with good feelings.”
“Got it. So, like, how long did it last from start to finish?”
“Not that long. Don’t forget, it was Josh’s first time too.” She sounds wistful. Now I feel wistful too. Peter’s done it with Genevieve so many times, he’s probably an expert by now. I’ll probably even have an orgasm my first time out. Which is great, but it might’ve been nice if we both didn’t know what we were doing instead of just me.
“You don’t regret it, do you?”
“No. I don’t think so. I think I’ll always be glad it was with Josh. No matter how it’s turned out.” This is a relief to me, that even now, with eyes red from crying, Margot still doesn’t regret having loved Josh.
 |
I sleep in her room that night like old times, huddled beside her under her quilt. Margot’s room is coldest, because it’s above the garage. I listen as the heat clicks off and on.
In the dark next to me she says, “I’m going to date a bunch of Scottish guys when I get back to school. When else will I have another opportunity like that, right?”
I giggle and roll over so we’re face-to-face. “No, wait—don’t date a bunch of Scottish guys. Date one from England, one from Ireland, one from Scotland. And Wales! A tour of the British Empire!”
“Well, I am going to school to study anthropology,” Margot says, and we giggle some more. “You know the saddest part? Josh and I will never be friends like we were before. Not after all this. That part’s just over now. He was my best friend.”
I give her fake-wounded eyes to lighten the mood, so she won’t start crying again. “Hey, I thought I was your best friend!”
“You’re not my best friend. You’re my sister, and that’s more.” It is more.
“Josh and I started out so easy, so fun, and now we’re like strangers. I’ll never have that person back, who I knew better than anyone and who knew me so well.”
I feel a pinch in my heart. When she says it that way, it’s so sad. “You could become friends again, after some time has passed.” But it wouldn’t be the same, I know that. You’d always be mourning what once was. It would always be a little bit . . . less.
“But it won’t be like before.”
“No,” I agree. “I suppose it won’t.” Strangely, I think of Genevieve, of who we used to be to each other. Ours was the kind of friendship that makes sense as a kid but not so much now that we’re older. I suppose you can’t hold on to old things just for the sake of holding on.
It’s the end of an era, it seems. No more Margot and Josh. This time for real. It’s real because Margot is crying, and I can hear it in her voice that it’s over, and this time we both know it. Things have changed.
“Don’t let it happen to you, Lara Jean. Don’t get too serious to where things can’t go back. Be in love with Peter if you want, but be careful with your heart. Things feel like they’ll be forever, but they aren’t. Love can go away, or people can, without even meaning to. Nothing is guaranteed.”
Gulp. “I promise I’ll be careful.” But I’m not sure I even know what that means. How can I be careful when I already like him so much?
