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Their first fight as a fully-fledged, official, ‘this head over heels shit is absolutely for real’ couple goes as well as could be expected for two people who were learning how to no longer hide their feelings from one another.
As in, not at all well.
All of those romance novels she collected and had permanently fastened either to her hands or her shelves would have the two lovers in heated tussles, enthralling arguments, bitter, heartbreaking misunderstandings that were (predictably) resolved halfway through.
The novels made these fights seem somewhat alluring, even exciting, but of course, of course, she grumbles under her breath - feeling pathetic, curled up in bed with the covers pulled all the way up to her chin - fiction is nothing like reality.
Her first fight with Peter, her current fight with Peter, so far has not come even remotely close to what she would describe as exciting. So far, the fight has consisted of tears and slammed doors and her heart hurting so much she can’t see straight because all she wants to do is talk to her mother.
Her mother would know what to do, what to say. Her mother for all her light and grace probably would’ve told her to get her butt out of bed and on the phone to Peter, to work it out.
But of course, if her mother were alive, there’d be nothing to work out, there’d be no fight to be in the middle of in the first place.
“Please, Lara Jean!” Peter had yelled, clambering out from his car but she was already inside in her house, falling right into Margot, who was miraculously home early for summer break and miraculously managed to surmise what was going on in less than a second, squeezing her sister’s hand before stepping out and closing the front door behind her.
Lara Jean had stood there, unable to move, soon hearing the sound of his car motor turning over, imagining - sort-of, her brain feels so scrambled - the mediating words her sister was saying to him, to the boy she loved so much.
Shit. Her heart knots further up her throat at the thought; she hadn’t even told him that yet, not quite finding the right moment, also not completely sure if those words, those three words, would feel the same once they were out in the open, unprotected and standing alone.
Margot stepped back inside, and without saying a word, guided Lara Jean up the stairs and into her bedroom, the two of them returning to shadows of motions that they adopted for months and years after their mother had died.
With the comforter pulled back, Lara Jean curls under the sheets, and it doesn’t take long for the day to catch up with her and she closes her eyes as the room drapes into darkness.
Now, hours later, the curtains cracked open to let in the last bit of afternoon sunlight, Lara Jean feels wide awake, simmering in her resentment over those books and the way they neglected to mention the extent of pain and misery that followed a fight and how instead they made the fighting and misunderstandings seem worthwhile.
The look of hurt and despair on his face as they stood by his front door, the look she knew she was responsible for putting there, and the ache for her mother that has never left her, is that worthwhile, she’s tempted to scream at the shelves - is that?!
6 hours earlier
“I want us to take this seriously.”
It takes everything in her, suppressing every gnawing impulse that is desperate to downplay the hell out of this, not to roll her eyes but he’s looking right at her, and she can hear the tinge of anxiety in his voice. Rolling her eyes and ignoring said anxiousness would for sure make this into A. Thing.
A Thing being the long, winding, unpaved conversation about their future she had been dreading and successfully avoiding for some time now.
But much to her utter lack of surprise, Peter Grant Kavinsky is one determined 'lacrosse playing-wears his huge ass heart on his sleeve for all to see' guy.
Lara Jean gently pokes his heel with her toe from where she was sat on the other end of the couch, “Peter, come on, stop. I am taking this seriously. Summer break isn't over yet and we have the entire senior year to figure this out, I think you can chill out boo.” She teases, trying to induce a smile at the very least but he now looks so concerned and serious that it’s igniting that familiar and uncomfortable heart hammering she gets lately whenever he attempts to bring this up.
Usually, she ignores this response, hides the fact that she’s scared and has unresolved attachment issues and that the idea of long-distance makes her want to barf or run so long, and so fast she barfs or generally scream until she’s no longer thinking of her mother.
Peter pointedly moves his body out of reach, puts down his mug of tea and solemnly folds his hands together.
Oh. Crap.
A butterfly the size of her first is starting to take flight somewhere above her ribs; she has a funny feeling she won’t be able to ignore this response this time.
“Okay then…” He starts slowly, looking away from her to instead study the rug on his living room floor, as though it will give him the answer Lara Jean is not, “So…we go through senior year, we avoid this conversation, we never talk about how we’re feeling and then what? We either break up or make a half-assed agreement to visit and write to each other?” He ends this speech by looking up at her incredulously, for effect, she guesses because it was practically dripping from his tone.
But she hates how he’s right, hates more so that the expression on his face shifts easily from bemusement to unwavering assuredness. Like he knew he wanted a future with her more than he knew anything else. Like it was a promise he knew he could make and give and worse still, believe.
Her mother had made promises too she’s thinking before she can stop herself, and for an inescapably long second, the pain is blinding; she can’t see or hear, tears prickling her eyes.
To prevent any further onslaught, she quickly blinks and scoops up both of their mugs, heading into the kitchen.
“Who is half-assing anything? We talk so much about our feelings Peter we may as well be two hosts on a kid’s breakfast show.”
She hears him scoff at this and get up just as she pulls open the dishwasher, loading the cups along with the other dishes they had left in the sink from earlier. It’s quiet as she stacks, rearranging cups for no real reason other than for something to do as he leans on the counter behind her.
“Lara Jean,” He says eventually, “Please, would you look at me?”
Her heart is racing, there’s no more butterfly, she needs to swallow down the ache and fear and everything else taking place there instead. It takes her a couple of breaths and then a couple more but she shakes out her hands, and she turns and looks up at him.
And he meets her with those warm, steady eyes of his.
“Stop avoiding,” He says quietly, “I know what you’re doing. Let’s just…let’s just talk about it. Just me and you.”
Lara Jean winces. Just me and you was their quick, simple shorthand for calling the other out on any bullshit they were trying to pull and might get away with on anyone else. Just me and you effectively meant, safe space, let’s hear it, be as weird and honest as you can muster because I’d walk to the moon and back just to see you for a second you and me: no bullshit. It usually did the trick, but it has the opposite effect here, she feels a surge, it’s almost soothing compared to the other feelings, of anger that he’s using that on her now when he should sense that he’s pushing it already, that she doesn’t want to talk about this. She would someday soon, but not now, not just out of the blue.
Well, somewhat out of the blue.
Information about early college applications and scholarships had arrived in the mail two days ago, where this very conversation, a conversation she’s been wanting to believe didn’t need to happen, formed on the offhanded remark from Peter that he’d turn down a scholarship if it meant not going to the same college as Lara Jean. The tone of his voice as he said it had been so casual, so unremarkable that she hadn’t taken it seriously. But he’s seriously looking at her right now in a way that makes her want to throw something, anything, her heart, at the wall.
“Peter.” She snaps, already regretting what’s about to happen but not having a clue as to how to stop it.
“How is us talking about something now going to change what inevitably will happen when we do go to separate colleges?”
He’s shaking his head before she’s even finished, shoving himself back away from the counter, “Geez, no one accused you of showering them in optimism did they, Covey?”
“Peter! I'm being realistic!”
“Would you knock it off already?” He shoots back, exasperated, “It’s me, okay? I know this is scary, I’m scared too…I mean, even dropping you off lately gets me thinking of us being separated so I try and make up excuses to stall I just…” He hesitates, a catch in his throat and he tips up his head, meeting her eyes across the room, “I hate driving away from you. I fucking hate it.”
Despite herself, despite everything – he does? - she softens her eyebrows, perks up her chin, “You do?”
He doesn’t say anything, still holding her gaze, but walks around the counter, comes right up close until he’s curling a finger around the belt loop of her jeans.
“Come on, baby.” He says quietly, the sound of his voice, soft and smooth, slips right down past her stomach, “Please talk to me. You’re thinking about your mom, aren’t you?”
And for a reason she will learn to understand much, much later, the mention of her mom is what does it. She yanks herself out and away from his reach, goes from warm to sickly cold in a matter of seconds, “God, you think you can just use that every time you want me to be honest with you Peter? Pulling the mom card when you think I don’t want to talk about something?”
Unsurprisingly, he pulls back, his face washed over in dismay; it’s an absurd and hurtful suggestion. Outside of her family, he understands how she feels about her mom, knows actually more than Kitty or Margot do how she feels about talking about her mom, and he’s protective about it.
Rationally, she knows this. She wishes the rational part of her would get to the party already.
“Wow. Okay then. You don’t wanna think about our future? Then let’s call it, right now. Is that what you wanna do? Because I’d be okay with that.”
He shrugs in a way she imagines is him trying to be nonchalant, but his eyes tell a different story, wide and shiny with tears; his poker face has always been laughably bad, he sucked at the two truths and a lie game they would play right after spin the bottle in middle school. It made her laugh, how terribly hard he would try to fool people only to fool a total sum of nobody. She’d probably be laughing at his lame attempt now, but she can barely register what he’s just said, she’s taken so off guard by everything she has just said, the sound of her heart thumping rapidly is ringing in her ears.
And before she knows it, before she can catch her breath, she quietly agrees, “F-fine...let’s call it then.”
And she walks away from the counter, right past him and right out of the kitchen, internally bellowing a ‘WHAT. THE. FUCK??’ at herself; her insides are exploding, her hand fumbles to get a tight enough grip to the strap of her backpack by the front door.
“Hey hey hey hey,” He immediately calls after her, and the attempted façade is gone, sheer panic instead tearing through his voice, “Come on, don’t do that, don’t do that, don’t do that alright? Don’t just give up when it starts to get too honest.”
Last night, out in the middle of the lacrosse field, ‘Waiting for a Girl Like You’ was blasting from his phone as they were mucking around, singing along at the top of their lungs. At some point they had separated to either end of the field and he ran up to catch her, holding on to her waist and lifting her up, her feet sliding up his legs. She was laughing so hard at his embellished singing voice she was snorting but then his lips found the corner of her neck and he broke off the singing to instead mouth the lyrics along her jaw and then her lips until he was kissing her for so long she felt invincible.
She has no idea how they’ve travelled so far beneath the steady ground of what they were to one another just last night.
And because she doesn’t, she takes everything he’s just given her and throws it right back.
She whirls around, blindly searching behind her for the handle of the door, “You really want to talk about giving up? Really? I’m not the one seriously considering turning down a sports scholarship, Peter - my potential future - just for a relationship that might not last. You force me to talk about our future when you’re so willing to throw yours away. Not to mention that whenever I suggest you take up your dads offer to spend a weekend with him you shut me down, so don’t talk to me about honesty. I’m going home.”
It’s roughly a 30-minute walk to her house from his, she’s never had to do it before, but it’s about the same distance as it was to school which she has done before, with a packed suitcase no less. She manages to swing open the door and trips her way down the porch steps and to the sidewalk. It’s hard not to look back, but she doesn’t, a part of her even expects – maybe wants – him to follow her or get in his jeep but she’s reached the end of his block, and there’s no sign of him.
This realization, along with the loud reverberating noise of everything she’s just said, all of it against her chest, is why she continues to walk and why she starts to cry.
Walking while crying is just as appealing as it sounds, by which, it isn’t at all. She’s sniffling up snot and inconspicuously wiping her cheeks as people move past her walking their dogs, pushing strollers. One couple jogging seem to realise that she’s crying and start to slow down, but she briskly picks up the pace and crosses the street, almost stumbling into a parked car. She nearly misses the turn to her street she’s so distracted and frankly, still surprised he hasn’t followed her.
But it’s when she’s reaching the mailbox that she sees him, pulling up his car to the curb. He barely brings it to a full stop when he’s swinging out of it, calling her name.
“Lara Jean!”
Present
Lara Jean brings her comforter right up and over her head, cocooning herself against the early night breeze coming through the open window. Her phone is silent or possibly dead, she doesn’t care, and the only noises in the room are from outside; the comforting tune of summer slowly turning towards autumn.
It’s peaceful; it makes her ache for his company.
“Knock knock.”
Kitty and Margot duck their heads around the door, looking first at the bed and then at each other, silently making an agreement.
“Hey LJ,” Margot says, taking Kitty’s hand in hers, “We’re going out for ice cream with daddy. Your dinner is in the fridge whenever you’re ready. We’ll be back soon.”
Lara Jean pushes a hand up against the comforter as her signal of gratitude, that they're leaving her be but is caught off guard when something light is dropped by her feet.
“He just dropped this off.”
And her door shuts behind them.
She spends a full minute contemplating on whether to move and retrieve what it was he has left or stay where she was and get to it later. Her curiosity, as well as her bladder, force her to decide.
After padding to and back from the bathroom, and plugging her very dead phone into the charger, she picks up the envelope that had slipped to the floor and curls back into bed with it. Holding it for a moment, she gently peels it open and draws out two letters, one that starts with Hey Dad and one that has her name scrawled at the top:
Lara Jean,
I’m sorry. What I did back there, that wasn’t fair to you. Turning my insecurities into yours too, forcing you to talk about your mom. I always want her to be someone you can talk about, that’s important to me. I would never want to do anything to hurt that. I hate that I have.
I get overwhelmed thinking about it, the what’s next part but forcing you to decide, forcing you to have the plan, that’s me putting my own stuff on you, and I’m sorry for that too.
But I want to be honest about what I want, and I want a future with you. I want to figure out the ‘what’s next’ part with you. Scholarship, colleges, everything. I love you and I’m in it with you Covey, for all of it.
And you were right about my dad.
Peter.
Swallowing over the lump that’s formed in her throat, Lara Jean hugs the piece of paper to her chest while lifting the second letter to read.
Hey dad,
Thank you for your letters. It was hard to read them, but I’m glad I finally did. I think spending a weekend with you, Carol and Ally would be okay. I want to bring Lara Jean. I’m not sure if you remember her, we were friends in middle school, but we’re a little more serious than that now, actually, a lot more serious and my life has been so good for it. She encouraged me to read your letters and to write back. I’d like you to meet her.
I’ve included my cell number. It’d be alright if we text now and then.
Peter.
He picks up his phone within seconds of her ringing it and he breathes her name, and she knows at that moment she only ever wants them to be okay.
“Will you come over?”
“Yes.” He says, and she loves him for sounding so sure.
Thirty-five minutes later – he had told her he had been driving aimlessly around town, not wanting to be still – and they’re sitting side by side on her back porch. The letters resting on the steps beneath them.
“I can’t control it.” She starts softly, not turning her head to meet his eyes, needing instead to look out at the yard, illuminated by fairy lights, and the big oak tree where underneath she had laid with her mother and sisters, their father taking one of the lasts pictures of the three of them.
“I couldn’t control whether or not she lived or died. I can’t control if we drift apart and I can’t control the decisions you make about your future.”
He nods in understanding before ducking his head, resting it against her shoulder as she continues to gaze out, liking how comfortable and stable he felt against her. How safe.
“Look at me.” She eventually asks, and he lifts and does. The face that meets hers is sad and now a little tired but open, unreservedly hopeful, and she wonders what he must see on hers, what he thinks as he does.
“What I can control is being honest with you…and…and I’m scared, Peter. I’m scared of how close we are. Of not knowing how to be without it, but then we just…we talk on the phone, or I read a note you wrote me weeks ago, and I feel so stupid.”
“For being scared?” He asks, his eyebrows pinched together, and it becomes clear to her at that moment that everything he sees, feels, is right there on the surface, that his face from the beginning, back when she had read him that note on the field, has told her exactly what she would ever want to know when it comes to the way he feels about her.
“For not trusting it. For being too scared to trust that feeling and for how much…” She hesitates, blinking towards the lights and the tree, thinking of her mom, thinking of her courage, her spontaneity, her irresistible desire not to be anything but herself and turns back towards him. Reaching out her hand, she thumbs gently over the scar on his chin, one of the many, many things she would not ever want to change about him and says, “I love you, Peter.”
This face, it’s all on the surface: a complete universe.
“I’m sorry, Covey,” He says slowly, and she can see the stars, the moon, the sun all over as his mouth splits into a smile, nudging one of her knees with his own, “But I’m gonna have to ask you to repeat that.”
She laughs out loud, full-brimmed and works her way into his lap. With an arm looped around his neck, she presses against his ear and whispers it again and again, once, twice, three times, “I love you.”
She’s still scared, knows he is too but there is now something stable beneath their feet and she feels it buoying her against the unknowable, against all the decision they will both individually and effectively together make.
Maybe they weren’t so bad at fights after all.