P.S. I Still Love You (16 page)

“Remember how we used to play Assassins?” Trevor says, squeezing the last bit of juice out of his Capri Sun.

Oh, how I loved that game! It was like tag: Everybody picked a name out of a hat, and you had to tag the person out. Once you got your person, you had to take out whoever
they
had. It involved a lot of sneaking around and hiding. A game could last for days.

“I was the Black Widow,” Genevieve says. She does a little shoulder shimmy at Peter. “I won more than anybody.”

“Please,” Peter scoffs. “I won plenty.”

“So did I,” Chris says.

Trevor points at me. “L’il J, you were the worst at it. I don’t think you won once.”

I make a face.
L’il J.
I’d forgotten he used to call me that. And he’s right: I never did win. Not even once. The one time I came close, Chris tagged me out at Kitty’s swim meet. I’d thought I was safe because it was late at night. I was so close to that win, I could almost taste it.

Chris’s eyes meet mine, and I know she’s remembering too. She winks at me, and I give her a sour look.

“Lara Jean just doesn’t have the killer instinct,” Genevieve says, looking at her nails.

I say, “We can’t all be black widows.”

“True,” she says, and my teeth clench.

John says to Peter, “Remember that one time I had you, and I was hiding behind your dad’s car before school, but it was your dad that came out, not you? And I scared him, and he and I both screamed?”

“Then we had to quit altogether when Trevor came to my mom’s store in his ski mask,” Peter guffaws.

Everyone laughs, except for me. I’m still smarting from Genevieve’s “killer instinct” dig.

Trevor’s laughing so hard he can barely speak. “She almost called the cops!” he manages to sputter.

Peter nudges my sneaker toe with his. “We should play again.”

He’s trying to get back in my good graces, but I’m not ready to let him, so I just shrug a chilly little shrug. I wish I weren’t mad at him, because I really do want to play again. I want to prove I’ve got the killer instinct too, that I’m not some Assassins loser.

“We should do it,” John says. “For old times’ sake.” He catches my eye. “One last shot, Lara Jean.”

I smile.

Chris raises an eyebrow. “What does the winner get?”

“Well . . . nothing,” I say. “It would just be for fun.” Trevor makes a face at this.

“There should be a prize,” Genevieve says. “Otherwise what’s the point?”

I think fast. What would be a good prize? “Movie tickets? A baked good of the winner’s choice?” I blurt out. No one says a word.

“We could all put in a twenty,” John offers. I throw him a grateful look and he smiles.

“Money’s boring,” Genevieve says, stretching like a cat.

I roll my eyes. Who asked for her two cents? I didn’t even ask for her to be here.

Trevor says, “Um, how about the winner gets breakfast in bed every day for a week? It could be pancakes on Monday, omelet on Tuesday, waffle on Wednesday, and so forth. There are six of us, so—”

Shuddering, Genevieve says, “I don’t eat breakfast.” Everyone groans.

“Why don’t you suggest something instead of shooting everybody down,” Peter says, and I hide my face behind my braid so no one sees me smile.

“Okay.” Genevieve thinks for a minute, and then a smile spreads across her face. It’s her Big Idea look, and it makes me nervous. Slowly, deliberately, she says, “The winner gets a wish.”

“From who?” Trevor asks. “Everybody?”

“From any one of us who are playing.”

“Wait a minute,” Peter interjects. “What are we signing on for here?”

Genevieve looks very pleased with herself. “One wish, and you have to grant it.” She looks like an evil queen.

Chris’s eyes gleam as she says, “Anything?”

“Within reason,” I quickly say. This isn’t at all what I had in mind, but at least people are willing to play.

“Reason is subjective,” John points out.

“Basically, Gen can’t force Peter to have sex with her one last time,” Chris says. “That’s what everyone’s thinking, right?”

I stiffen. That wasn’t what I was thinking, like at all. But now I am.

Trevor busts up laughing and Peter shoves him. Genevieve shakes her head. “You’re
disgusting
, Chrissy.”

“I only said what everyone was thinking!”

I’m barely even listening at this point. All I can think is, I want to play this game and I want to win. Just once I want to beat Genevieve at something.

I only have one pen and no paper, so John tears up the ice cream sandwich box and we take turns writing our names down on our cardboard scraps. Then everybody puts their names in the empty time capsule, and I shake it up. We pass it around and I go last. I pull out the piece of cardboard, hold it close to my chest, and open it.

JOHN.

Well, that complicates things. I sneak a peek at him. He’s carefully tucking his piece of cardboard in his jeans pocket. Sorry, (pen) pal, but you’re going down. I take a quick look around the room for clues to who might have my name, but everyone’s got their poker faces on.

36

THE RULES ARE: YOUR HOUSE
is a safe zone. School is a safe zone, but not the parking lot. Once you step out the door, it’s all fair game. You’re out if you get hit with a two-hand touch.

And if you renege on your wish, your life is forfeit. Genevieve comes up with that last part and it gives me shivers. Trevor Pike shudders and says, “Girls are scary.”

“No, girls in
their
family are scary,” Peter says, gesturing at Chris and Genevieve. They both smile, and in those smiles I see the family resemblance. Casting a sidelong glance at me, Peter says hopefully, “You’re not scary, though. You’re sweet, right?” Suddenly I remember something Stormy said to me.
Don’t ever let him get too sure of you.
Peter is very sure of me. As sure as a person could be.

“I can be scary too,” I quietly say back, and he blanches. Then, to everyone else, I say, “Let’s just have fun with it.”

“Oh, it’ll be fun,” John assures me. He puts his Orioles cap on his head and pulls the brim down. “Game on.” He catches my eye. “If you thought I was good at Model UN, wait till you see my
Zero Dark Thirty
skills.”

I walk with everyone out front to their cars, and I hear Peter tell Genevieve to get a ride with Chris, which they both balk at. “Figure it out amongst yourselves,” Peter says. “I’m hanging out with my girlfriend.”

Genevieve rolls her eyes and Chris groans. “Ugh. Fine.” To Genevieve she says, “Get in.”

Chris’s car is backing out of the driveway when John says to Peter, “Who’s your girlfriend?” My stomach does a dip.

“Covey.” Peter gives him a funny look. “You didn’t know? That’s weird.”

Now they’re both looking at me. Peter’s confused, but John gets it, whatever “it” is.

I should have told him. Why didn’t I tell him?

Everyone leaves soon after, except for Peter.

“So are we going to talk about this?” he asks, trailing after me into the kitchen. I’ve got the trash bag with all the ice cream wrappers and Capri Suns, and I refused his help carrying it down. Almost tripped going down the ladder with it, but I don’t care.

“Sure, let’s talk.” I spin around and advance toward him, trash bag swinging in my hand. He lifts his hands up in alarm. “Why did you bring Genevieve here?”

Peter grimaces. “Ugh, Covey, I’m sorry.”

“Were you hanging out with her? Is that why you didn’t come early to help me set up?”

He hesitates. “Yeah, I was with her. She called me crying, so I went over there, and then I couldn’t just leave her by herself . . . so I brought her.”

Crying? I’ve never known her to cry. Even when her cat Queen Elizabeth died, she didn’t cry. She must have been faking to get Peter to stay. “You couldn’t just leave her?”

“No,” he says. “She’s going through some shit right now. I’m just trying to be there for her. As a friend. That’s it!”

“Gosh, she really knows how to work you, Peter!”

“It’s not like that.”

“It’s always like that. She pulls the strings and you just . . .” I dangle my arms and head like a marionette doll.

Peter frowns. “That was mean.”

“Well, I feel mean right now. So watch out.”

“You’re not mean, though. Not usually.”

“Why can’t you just tell me? You know I won’t tell anyone. I really want to understand it, Peter.”

“Because it’s not for me to say. Don’t try to make me tell you, because I can’t.”

“She’s just doing this to manipulate you. It’s what she does.” I hear the jealousy in my voice, and I hate it, I hate it. This isn’t me.

He sighs. “Nothing’s happening with us. She just needs a friend.”

“She has a lot of friends.”

“She needs an old friend.”

I shake my head. He doesn’t get it. Girls understand each other in a way boys never will. It’s how I know this is all just another one of her games. Showing up at my house today was just another way for her to exert dominance over me.

Then Peter says, “Speaking of old friends, I didn’t realize you and McClaren were so buddy-buddy.”

I flush. “I told you we were pen pals.”

Raising his eyebrows, he says, “You’re pen pals but he doesn’t know we’re together?”

“It never came up!” Wait a minute—I’m the one who’s supposed to be mad at him right now, not the other way around. Somehow this whole conversation has flipped around, and now I’m the one flailing.

“So that day you went to the Model UN thing a few months ago, I asked you if you saw McClaren and you said no. But then today he brought up Model UN, and you clearly did see him there. Did you not?”

I swallow. “When did you turn into a prosecutor? Sheesh. I saw him there but we didn’t even talk; I just handed him a note—”

“A note? You gave him a note?”

“It wasn’t from me—it was from a different country, for Model UN.” Peter opens his mouth to ask another question, and I quickly add, “I just didn’t mention it because nothing came of it.”

Incredulous, he says, “So you want me to be honest with you, but you don’t want to be honest with me?”

“It wasn’t like that!” I cry out. What is even happening here? How did our fight get so big so fast?

Neither of us says anything for a moment. Then, quietly, he asks, “Do you want to break up?”

Break up?
“No.” All of a sudden I feel shaky, like I could cry. “Do you?”

“No!”

“You asked me first!”

“So that’s it. Neither of us wants to break up, so we just move on.” Peter sinks down on a chair at the kitchen table and rests his head on it.

I sit across from him. He feels so far away from me. My hand is itching to reach out and touch his hair, smooth it out, to make this fight be over and in our rearview.

He lifts his head; his eyes are sad and enormous. “Can we hug now?”

Shakily I nod, and we both get up and I wrap my arms around his middle. He holds me tight against him. His voice is muffled against my shoulder as he says, “Can we never fight again?”

I laugh a shaky kind of laugh, shaky and relieved. “Yes, please.”

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. In answer I kiss him back—
yes, I promise, promise, promise, let’s never fight again.
I start to lose my balance, and his arm locks around me tight, and he kisses me until I am breathless.

37

ON THE PHONE THAT NIGHT
, Chris says, “Spill it. Who do you have?”

“I’m not telling.” I’ve made this mistake in the past, telling Chris too much, only to have her tag her way to victory.

“Come on! I’ll help you if you help me. I want my wish!” Chris’s strength in this game is how bad she wants it, but it’s also her weakness. You have to play Assassins in a cool, measured way, not go too hot too fast. I say this as someone who’s observed all the nuances but has never personally won, of course.

“You might have my name. Besides, I want to win too.”

“Let’s just help each other out on this first round of hits,” Chris wheedles. “I don’t have your name, I swear.”

“Swear on your blankie that you won’t let your mom throw away.”

“I swear on my blankie Fredrick and I double swear on my new leather jacket that cost more money than my damn car. Do you have
my
name?”

“No.”

“Swear on your ugly beret collection.”

I make an indignant sound. “I swear on my
charming
and
jaunty
beret collection! So who do you have then?”

“Trevor.”

“I’ve got John McClaren.”

“Let’s team up to take them out,” Chris suggests. “Our alliance can last as long as this first round, and then it’s every girl for herself.”

Hmm. Is she for real or is this all strategy? “What if you’re lying just to smoke me out?”

“I swore on Fredrick!”

I hesitate and then say, “Text me a picture of the name slip and then I’ll believe you.”

“Fine! Then text me yours.”

“Fine. Bye.”

“Wait. Tell me the truth. Does my hair look like shit? It doesn’t, right? Gen’s just a heinous troll. Right?”

I hesitate the tiniest of beats. “Right.”

Chris and I are slumped down in her car. We are one neighborhood over from mine; it’s the neighborhood Trevor will drive through to shortcut to school for track practice. We’re parked in some random person’s driveway. She says, “Tell me what you’re going to wish for if you win.” The way she says it, I know she doesn’t think I’m going to win.

I thought about the wish all last night when I was trying to fall asleep. “There’s a craft expo in North Carolina in June. I could get Peter to drive me. There’s no way he’d take me otherwise. We could take his mom’s van, so there’s plenty of room for all the supplies and things that I’ll buy.”

“A craft expo?” Chris is giving me a look like I’m a cockroach that flew into her car. “You would waste a wish on a craft expo?”

“I was just getting warmed up with that idea,” I lie. “Anyway, if you’re so smart, what would you wish for if you were me?”

“I would make it so that Peter never talks to Gen again. I mean, right? I’m an evil genius, am I not?”

“Evil, yes; genius, hardly.” Chris gives me a shove, and I giggle. We’re both shoving each other when Chris stops short and says, “Two fifty-five. It’s go time.” Chris unlocks the doors and gets out and hides behind an oak tree in the yard.

My adrenaline is pumping as I hop out of Chris’s car, grab Kitty’s bike out of her trunk, and push it a few houses. Then I set it on the ground and drape myself over it in a dramatic heap. Then I pull out the bottle of fake blood I bought for this very purpose and squirt some on my jeans—old jeans I’ve been planning on giving to Goodwill. As soon as I see Trevor’s car approaching, I start to pretend sob. From behind the tree Chris whispers, “Tone it down a little!” I immediately stop sobbing and start moaning.

Trevor’s car pulls up beside me. He rolls down the window. “Lara Jean? Are you okay?”

I whimper. “No . . . I think I might have sprained my ankle. It really hurts. Can you give me a ride home?” I’m willing myself to tear up, but it’s harder to cry on cue than I would have thought. I try to think about sad things—the
Titanic
, old people with Alzheimer’s, Jamie Fox-Pickle dying—but I can’t focus.

Trevor regards me suspiciously. “Why are you riding your bike in this neighborhood?”

Oh no, I’m losing him! I start talking fast but not too fast. “It’s not my bike; it’s my little sister’s. She’s friends with Sara Healey. You know, Dan Healey’s little sister? They live over there.” I point to their house. “I was bringing it to her—oh my God, Trevor. Do you not believe me? Are you seriously not going to give me a ride?”

Trevor looks around. “Do you swear this isn’t a trick?”

Gotcha! “Yes! I swear I don’t have your name, okay? Please just help me up. It really hurts.”

“First show me your ankle.”

“Trevor! You can’t
see
a sprained ankle!” I whimper and make a show of trying to stand up, and Trevor finally turns the car off and gets out. He stoops down and pulls me to my feet and I try to make my body heavy. “Be gentle,” I tell him. “See? I told you I didn’t have your name.”

Trevor pulls me up by my armpits, and over his shoulder Chris creeps up behind him like a ninja. She dives forward, both hands out, and claps them on his back hard. “I got you!” she screams.

Trevor shrieks and drops me, and I narrowly escape falling for real. “Damn it!” he yells.

Gleefully Chris says, “You’re done, sucker!” She and I high-five and hug.

“Can you guys not celebrate in front of me?” he mutters.

Chris holds her hand out. “Now gimme gimme gimme.”

Sighing, Trevor shakes his head and says, “I can’t believe I fell for that, Lara Jean.”

I pat him on the back. “Sorry, Trevor.”

“What if I had had your name?” he asks me. “What would you have done then?”

Huh. I never thought of that. I shoot Chris an accusing glare. “Wait a minute! What if he had had my name?”

“That was a chance we were willing to take,” she says smoothly. “So Trev, what was your wish going to be?”

“You don’t have to say if you don’t want,” I tell him.

“I was gonna wish for tickets to a UVA football game. McClaren’s dad has season tickets! Damn you, Chris.”

I feel bad. “Maybe he’ll take you anyway. You should ask. . . .”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his wallet and hands her a small piece of folded cardboard. Before Chris opens it, I quickly say, “Don’t forget, if it’s my name, you can’t tag me. This is a demilitarized zone right here.”

Chris nods, opens the cardboard, and then grins.

I can’t resist. “Is it me?”

Chris stuffs it in her pocket.

“If it’s me, you can’t take me out!” I start to back away from her. “We agreed to be allies this first round, and you haven’t helped me with mine yet.”

“I know, I know. But I don’t have your name.”

I’m not entirely convinced. This is how she beat me another time we played. She can’t be trusted, not in this game. I should have remembered that. It’s why I always lose; I don’t look down the line far enough.

“Lara Jean! I just told you, I don’t have your name!”

I shake my head. “Just get in the car, Chris. I’ll ride Kitty’s bike home.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes. I’m playing to win this time.”

Chris shrugs. “Have it your way. I’m not helping you with your kill, then, if you don’t trust me.”

“Fine by me,” I say, and swing my leg over Kitty’s bike.