Who could have done this to me?” I wail, pressing my hands to my cheeks. “I can’t feel my face. Is my face still my face?
Haven admits. “Like, how did you get him? No offense. I just thought you were the non-dating type.” I frown. The non-dating type? What kind of type is that? A little mushroom who sits at home in a semidark room growing moss?
Daddy tips my chin. Firmly he says, “I would be nowhere without her, because I wouldn’t have my girls.
I like him in sweaters.
What in the world? I stare at him, my mouth open. “I never said you had an STD!
Chris gives me a new lipstick: red for when I want to be bad, she says.
But still I hope, because I can’t help but hope.
We’re on an adventure, she yells. We don’t need cell phones for an adventure.
Let’s take a selfie. We can’t, our phones are dead, remember? We’ll just have to have the memory in our hearts like the old days.
Curling your hair is an intrinsically hopeful act.
Girls with boyfriends, she’d said, limit themselves to a certain kind of college experience.
You’re keeping me going, Lara Jean.” Josh looks at me and I feel it all, every memory, every moment we’ve ever shared.
And then he’s kissing me; his mouth is urgent against mine, like he’s searching for some sort of reassurance, some kind of promise only I can give.
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.
But that’s just inscapable, right? When you lose someone and it still hurts, that’s when you know the love was real.
When I write, I hold nothing back. I write like he’ll never read it. Because he never will.
She laughs. “Except you, Lara Jean. You’re still itty-bitty pocket-sized.” She says it sweetly. Like sweetened condensed milk. Sweet and condescending. Poured on super thick. I.
Love is about making brave choices every day.
Everything’s changing,” I say, sighing.
I wanted to memorize it all in case I didn’t get to come back again. You never know the last time you’ll see a place. A person.