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Lara Jean grows up believing that the sentence on her wrist is supposed to mean something.
Six words. Nineteen letters. There is no one like you.
All her life, she is told that birthmark words are words she’s supposed to hear from her soulmate. Something exclusive, grand, and romantic. Magical, in the way hearing classical music on a moonlit night is supposed to feel. Like you’re more than part of the universe, like you actually encompass the entity itself. All the stars, planets, suns, revolving infinitely around the earth.
Or, at least that’s what romance novels say.
But here’s the thing: the sentence on her skin is nothing extraordinary. It could come from anyone, anytime. Some people, she’s heard, have beautiful words, and there are Lara Jean’s, as plain as they come. There is no one like you. Fate’s way of handing out poetic irony right there.
Margot won’t tell her what her sentence is. The response is always the same: “just flowery nonsense”, each and every time.
Lara Jean’s kind of jealous, really.
But not everyone has words. There are those with images, too. Almost the same as tattoos, but ultimately with more meaningful permanence. Delicate roses done in pale pink filigree, to name a few. The unfurled wings of a raven, spread out in midnight-blue ink. Sea shells on a tangle of anemones, pearl-white and ornate.
They beat what she has, any day.
Admittedly, it’s a pretty vain wish, to have stars instead of an unkempt scrawl. But that’s precisely the point: if she’s going to meet her soulmate, it might as well be a memorable affair. Not - whatever this is.
Oh, well. You can’t have everything in life.
✧･ﾟ: *
She thinks it’s Josh for a good two weeks.
It starts when she falls off her bike one day. They’re riding around the neighbourhood, the warm afternoon light luminous against their skin, their backs, when Lara Jean comes across a rock and skids to the side. She isn’t wearing any kind of protective gear, so that earns her a few scrapes.
The sight of the gashes gets Josh into the Worried Mode immediately. That sort of state is usually reserved for Margot - Margot being Margot and all - but Josh can be just as bad, sometimes. So there they are, crouched on the sidewalk, Josh carefully examining the afflicted areas, Lara Jean sticking her tongue out all the while.
“Hey, I’m fine. Promise, ” she insists, pushing away at his hand because it’s the truth.
Josh raises an eyebrow. There’s an amused twinkle in his eyes that makes her breath catch for the briefest millisecond. Or two. “Uh, hello. You can’t ride in your condition,” he says. “What if you like accidentally trip again? Or something? Margot would kill me.”
“Nice to know that your own welfare is all that you care about.” Lara Jean snorts. Then, she moves to get to her feet, but the effort makes her wince, and it isn’t lost on Josh.
So before Josh can speak up, Lara Jean is hopping onto her bike again and racing down the sidewalk. It is quick to become a game, the two of them speeding along the streets, the balmy summer hair whipping through their hair.
They stop once they reach the front of Lara Jean’s house, and Josh practically throws himself onto the grass.
“Seriously?” she says, poking at his leg with a foot. “C’mon, lazy bones. We still have that tree-climbing to do.”
Josh rolls onto his side. He curls into himself, pretending to sleep. “Get yourself patched up first.”
“That can wait.” Lara Jean lets out a laugh. And then, she stretches out a hand. “Josh. Please. Get up.”
For a moment, it looks as if he isn’t about to listen to her, but then his fingers wrap around her own wrist, his lips quirked up into a smile. And for some reason Lara Jean’s heart, that - that traitor, starts stuttering at this, Josh’s hand now slipping into her own, his mouth curled in a crescent moon shape, his voice honey-sweet in her ears.
“There is no one like you, is there, Lara Jean?” he says, and maybe he means it to come off as teasing, but it isn’t, not really.
Those six words, six syllables, and still the world turns. Staying firmly in its tracks.
The now dying light haloes the brown of Josh’s hair, illuminating the lighter hues, like the golden threads of a tapestry. It’s you, Lara Jean thinks dimly. Definitely you. But it does not feel like it is.
(He is not, Lara Jean realizes not long after. When she discovers the mark on his skin does not match hers in the slightest. Not a sentence, but an image. A whorl of powder-blue, twined along the slender arch of his collarbone.
✧･ﾟ: *
There’s Kenny from camp. John Ambrose from Model UN. But it is neither of them, like Josh.
Kenny, she finds out the hard way, after he says the words on her wrist without knowing of their existence. And it’s funny, how a sentence that once meant so much could turn out insignificant in the end.
“You know, Lara Jean, I actually know who my soulmate is,” Kenny says to her as they’re swinging their legs over a ledge, unaware that her heart is sinking, sinking, sinking. “It’s this girl back at home. She’s really pretty, you know. Brown hair, green eyes. Freckles all over her face. I think I’m in love with her. And I think she loves me, too.” He says this so seriously, so solemnly, Lara Jean forgets her disappointment and hopes it’s true, for both their sakes.
When you’re eleven, you don’t really know what love is. Not the kind where your family or friends are involved, but the kind that makes your heart race, palms sweat, knees buckle. Lara Jean would know; she got over Josh point five seconds after the crushing realization. So, Lara Jean and Kenny? Not meant to be?
Cool.
Camp is the last time Lara Jean sees Kenny, anyway. Cutting a languid, loose-limbed figure against the noonday sun, tanned from exposure.
✧･ﾟ: *
John Ambrose is a little more complicated. They get to know each other well during the MUN meetings, and Lara Jean ends up liking him so much it’s harder to accept the reality.
Smart, handsome, soft-spoken John Ambrose, with those bright blue eyes of his that remind her of oceans where they’re at their deepest. Rich sapphire. Deep, deep blue.
For a while, she is sure that John Ambrose likes her back. That maybe, just maybe, he is the one meant for her. So when a stroke of fortune gets him to utter the cursed words, during a conversation about political warfare, she’s touched that he seems to mean it, that he truly thinks she is clever and capable and bright, but there’s something missing from the picture, one that she cannot name for the life of her.
Sure, John Ambrose does like her. In the way she has been hoping for.
It is not a dream come true, however. Whatever they have between them ends where it starts - never mutually acknowledged - because, number one, they’re kids, and, number two, she figures out it’s not John Ambrose her heart has been searching for.
When John Ambrose moves to a new school by the end of the year, that’s quick to become history, and strangely enough Lara Jean feels an odd sense of closure.
✧･ﾟ: *
Seventh grade comes along and brings with it Peter Kavinsky.
This one is easy: the only real event that comes up between them is a single kiss during a game of Spin the Bottle. That’s pretty much it. Plus, there’s the matter of Gen being crazy wild for him, convinced they’re meant to be together, forever and ever, so ....
Good for Gen. Whatever.
Still it does not stop Peter from stealing looks at her on occasion. And she notices this, alright. Hard not to.
✧･ﾟ: *
Lucas James happens before Lara Jean has the sense to finally draw the line somewhere.
She’s not sure how it begins. Her, eyeing Lucas James from afar, pulse racing, cheeks warming. Maybe it was the smile. Or that amazing sense of humour. But it was the dance, really, that sealed the deal, the two of them swaying under the blue-purple lights, rendered aglow. Him whispering the words so many before him had once told her.
However, they don’t last long, her feelings for him. It is the start of something new, until one day it isn’t: “Hey, Lara Jean, I think - I think I’m into guys.”
That day, Lara Jean looks him in the eye. And gives him a big smile.
It may not have worked out, but at least she found a friend.
Five boys later, and clearly the soulmate search isn’t really working out.
Perhaps it’s time to set it aside. For now, at least.
✧･ﾟ: *
Eleventh grade arrives, and by that point Lara Jean isn’t really looking for a somebody, anymore. It gets pushed to the sidelines, wondering about her soulmate, because there are better goals to have at the present moment than trying to find the One. She’s got years ahead of her. A lifetime, to be exact. And if that still isn’t enough, then that’s that, she supposes.
If it isn’t meant to be, then it isn’t meant to be. No use trying to wish the unachievable into existence.
And then Kavinsky happens - again.
Peter Kavinsky. Kavinsky, with that lazy, crooked smirk, and those piercing dark eyes that have always seemed to smolder with all types of belly-burning promises. And Lara Jean has seen them in action - the effect potent up-close and just as strong even from afar.
A butterfly’s touch to the wrist turned searing by the low burn of that steady gaze.
Lara Jean should be immune to this. This being boys like him, too cheeky, too charming for their own good - nothing but trouble.
And she is, so to speak. Immune.
She’s seen him in classrooms, hallways, and parking lots. With his arm slung over a pretty girl’s shoulders. His laugh infectious when he leans down to whisper into her ear. His smile loose and coy. Incandescent at the seams. This part is where the appeal’s lost on her, even though yeah, he is hot.
No, that’s not it. Because what Lara Jean has always been drawn to is that Peter, for all that boys like him should stand for (as dictated by those silly ninety-nine cent finds at discount bookstores), is actually really, really nice. Like, he’s been this way since middle school, and maybe Lara Jean’s being judgemental, but she’d been at least thirty percent sure that he’d change, transform into someone annoying and pseudo-debonair. Typical jock attitude.
It’s nice that she got that assumption wrong.
So, back to the topic of soulmates. And how Kavinsky fits in.
It’s stupid, thinking about those things on the same page, much less the same line. It’s Kavinsky’s fault, honestly, that he had to choose sitting right next to her - out of all people - in Lit class, and then proceeding to give her that annoyingly gorgeous Peter Kavinsky grin.
While saying, in his most serene voice, “Looks like we’re stuck together, Lara Jean. We’re officially partners-in-crime now, right?”
There was a cough in the background - Gen’s irritation, at the sight of them side by side - and then Lara Jean’s small smile directed towards him, amused.
That’s how it started. Lara Jean falling against her better wishes.
And the dangerous part is, there now seems to be no end in sight.
✧･ﾟ: *
It takes Peter Kavinsky driving her to school, swapping silly notes and hanging out at cafes with her, to get her to arrive at a realization.
That he feels so, so different from the others. Josh, Kenny, John Ambrose, and Lucas James, that it honestly kind of startles her in its novelty. The slow and tender way he’s steadily infiltrating her thoughts and the spaces in between. The limbo between rest and wakefulness, and that dream-state of barely-there consciousness.
Peter’s just a hard-to-forget afterthought in her reality, solid only when he’s around in her presence, until one day he isn’t, slowly easing himself into a position of significance in her life, no longer white noise.
He is there at school, and now in her dreams as well. Boy running. Boy chasing. Always, always after her, through dew-soaked meadows of green gilded by sunrise.
✧･ﾟ: *
“Lara Jean,” Peter says with a grin, settling down onto the spot next to her and then knocking their knees together.
“I’m waiting for Chris,” Lara Jean says, putting aside her book.
His mouth curls in amused suspicion. “No, you’re not.”
A sigh. “No, I’m not.” She looks into his eyes, and there are lights flickering in them from the lamps lining the street, and she thinks she can hear her heartbeat, there behind her ribcage. “Don’t you have someone else to annoy, Peter? Why always me?”
“That’s because there is no one like you, Covey,” Peter says, and the mark on her wrist burns, but Lara Jean just looks away.
✧･ﾟ: *
At school, they tell you how stars are born, the ones high up in space. The process takes place inside molecular clouds called nebulae, where dense regions start forming, and then collapsing under their own gravitational force. Once that happens, a real star is born after the resulting protostar at the centre undergoes fusion.
That’s the simplified step-by-step. Minus the technicalities.
It’s hard to explain Lara Jean’s reasoning, why she thinks that might be how love develops, too. But she’s always had a thing for reconciling completely unrelated topics with each other; that’s the beauty of metaphor. It doesn’t have to make sense, so long as it moves you.
So picture this: a nebula. A cloud of dust and gas. Confusion. Feelings. All sorts of happy but irritating things.
And then next, gravity compressing the cloud. There’s pressure building, and the temperature going up.
The centre gets hotter and hotter, and then a fusion reaction takes place. And there you have it: a star. Love burning, burning, burning.
✧･ﾟ: *
Lara Jean takes to distancing herself, but it’s hard, because it’s Peter, and giving in is so much easier, so she stops, and just goes along with it, lets herself think about Peter in all the ways she’s wanted to.
Holding his hand. Looking into his eyes. Pressing her palm to his heart.
Peter saying, “Lara Jean,” when he means something else, and Lara Jean saying, “Peter,” when she means, “I feel the same way.”
And then there comes a time when Peter tells her he’s known who his soulmate is for a while now, and Lara Jean’s heart sinks because she thought he was genuinely hers, but she doesn’t let her disappointment show; she only smiles and says, “Good for you.”
“Don’t you want to guess?” Peter says, and Lara Jean shakes her head, trying for another smile.
“No, not really.”
✧･ﾟ: *
She finds out that Kitty has been keeping Peter’s notes, and she’s only annoyed for a moment, until she goes through some of the papers herself.
You looked so pretty today, Lara Jean. Math class, fifth period.
Did you know that you have hair the colour of midnight. Seriously. I’m not saying this only to be poetic. World History, third period.
And then, There is no one like you, Lara Jean Song Covey -
Wait. Wait.
Lara Jean pauses. Scrunches her eyebrows. Then she pulls down her bracelet, compares the note’s handwriting to the one etched on her wrist.
Same letters. Same scrawl. A hundred percent match.
A small smile blossoms on her face.
✧･ﾟ: *
They meet up after school, when the sky is a thousand different shades of languid rose-gold. Peter is waiting for her on the bleachers, hair windswept, mouth pulled up in a large grin, and there’s Lara Jean moving next to him, her heart refusing to settle, still.
“I got your note,” Peter says, and Lara Jean feels full of this: the timbre of his voice, the deep amber flecks in his eyes, the soft, gentle glow of sunlight against his hair.
He shows her his wrist, and there it is: I know it’s you, Peter Kavinsky, done in the soulmate mark equivalent of glittering blue gel pen.
Wait. “But - but I gave you that note two hours ago,” Lara Jean says. “How did you know it was me before then? Like, you told me way back when that you already had an idea.”
“I think I dreamt you,” Peter says, and when Lara Jean laughs, tells him to be serious, he just says, “Honestly, I did. Like, I think that my heart’s internal compass was just pointing at you this whole time. That, and I really wanted it to be the case.”
“You … did?” Lara Jean’s breath hitches. Halts entirely.
The fading sun turns his skin luminous and orange-warm, and when Peter whispers, “I’ll never not choose you, Lara Jean,” before leaning down to kiss her, nothing magical happens, and even though it isn’t like what the movies say, it’s even better because it’s real, all of it.
Peter’s mouth against hers, her hand pressed flush against his chest, and the unspoken I’m falling for you in between.
The world is already painted in the colours of a sunset when Peter reaches up to cup her jaw and kiss her more deeply, so really, that’s all the magic that she needs.