Ch. 45: Chapter Forty-Five — The Summer I Turned Pretty

chapter forty-five

I hated the last day before we left, because it was cleanup day, and when we were kids, we weren’t allowed to go to the beach at all, in case we brought in more sand. We washed all the sheets and swept up the sand, made sure all the boogie boards and floats were in the basement, cleaned out the fridge and packed sandwiches for the drive home. My mother was at the helm of this day. She was the one who insisted everything be just so. “So it’s all ready for next summer,” she’d say. What she didn’t know was that Susannah had cleaners come in after we left and before we came back.

I caught Susannah calling them once, scheduling an appointment. She covered the phone with one hand and whispered guiltily, “Don’t tell your mom, okay, Belly?”

I nodded. It was like a secret between us, and I liked that. My mother actually liked to clean and didn’t believe in housekeepers or maids or in other people doing what she considered our work. She’d say, “Would you ask someone else to brush your teeth for you, or lace up your shoes, just because you could?” The answer was no.

“Don’t worry too much about the sand,” Susannah would whisper when she’d see me going over the kitchen floor with a broom for the third time. I would keep sweeping anyway. I knew what my mother would say if she felt any grains on her feet.

That night for dinner we ate everything that was left in the fridge. That was the tradition. My mother heated up two frozen pizzas, reheated lo mein and fried rice, made a salad out of pale celery and tomatoes. There was clam chowder too, and half a rack of ribs, plus Susannah’s potato salad from more than a week before. It was a smorgasbord of old food that no one felt like eating.

But we did. We sat around the kitchen table picking off of foil-covered plates. Conrad kept sneaking looks at me, and every time I looked back, he looked away. I’m right here, I wanted to tell him. I’m still here.

We were all pretty quiet until Jeremiah broke the silence like breaking the top of a crème brûlée. He said, “This potato salad tastes like bad breath.”

“I think that would be your upper lip,” Conrad said.

We all laughed, and it felt like a relief. For it to be okay to laugh. To be something other than sad.

Then Conrad said, “This rib has mold on it,” and we all started to laugh again. It felt like I hadn’t laughed in a long time.

My mother rolled her eyes. “Would it kill you to eat a little mold? Just scrape it off. Give it to me. I’ll eat it.”

Conrad put his hands up in surrender, and then he stabbed the rib with his fork and dropped it on my mother’s plate ceremoniously. “Enjoy it, Laurel.”

“I swear, you spoil these boys, Beck,” my mother said, and everything felt normal, like any other last night. “Belly was raised on leftovers, weren’t you, bean?”

“I was,” I agreed. “I was a neglected child who was fed only old food that nobody else wanted.”

My mother suppressed a smile and pushed the potato salad toward me.

“I do spoil them,” Susannah said, touching Conrad’s shoulder, Jeremiah’s cheek. “They’re angels. Why shouldn’t I?”

The two boys looked at each other from across the table for a second. Then Conrad said, “I’m an angel. I would say Jere’s more of a cherub.” He reached out and tousled Jeremiah’s hair roughly.

Jeremiah swatted his hand away. “He’s no angel. He’s the devil,” he said. It was like the fight had been erased. With boys it was like that; they fought and then it was over.

My mother picked up Conrad’s rib, looked down at it, and then put it down again. “I can’t eat this,” she said, sighing.

“Mold won’t kill you,” Susannah declared, laughing and pushing her hair out of her eyes. She lifted her fork in the air. “You know what will?”

We all stared at her.

“Cancer,” she said triumphantly. She had the best poker face known to man. She held a straight face for four whole seconds before erupting into a fit of giggles. She rustled her hand through Conrad’s hair until he finally wore a smile. I could tell he didn’t want to, but he did it. For her.

“Listen up,” she said. “Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m seeing my acupuncturist, I’m taking medicine, I’m still fighting this the best I can. My doctor says that at this point that’s the most I can do. I refuse to put any more poison into my body or spend any more time in hospitals. This is where I want to be. With the people who matter most to me. Okay?” She looked around at us.

“Okay.” We all said it, even though it was in no way, shape, or form okay. Nor would it ever be.

Susannah continued. “If and when I go off slow dancing in the ever after, I don’t want to look like I’ve been stuck in a hospital room my whole life. I at least want to be tan. I want to be as tan as Belly.” She pointed at me with her fork.

“Beck, if you want to be as tan as Belly, you’ll need more time. That’s not something you can achieve in one summer. My girl wasn’t born tan; it takes years. And you’re not ready yet,” my mother said. She said it simply, logically.

Susannah wasn’t ready yet. None of us were.

After dinner we all went our separate ways to pack. The house was quiet, too quiet. I stayed in my bedroom, packing up clothes, my shoes, my books. Until it was time to pack my bathing suit. I wasn’t ready to do that yet. I wanted one more swim.

I changed into my one-piece and wrote two notes, one for Jeremiah and one for Conrad. On each of them I wrote, “Midnight swim. Meet me in ten minutes.” I slid a note under each door and then ran downstairs as quick as I could with my towel streaming behind me like a flag. I couldn’t let the summer end like this. We couldn’t leave this house until we had one good moment, for all of us.

The house was dark, and I made my way outside without turning on the lights. I didn’t need to. I knew it by heart.

As soon as I got outside, I dove into the pool. I didn’t dive so much as belly flop. The last one of the summer, maybe ever—in this house, anyway. The moon was bright and white, and as I waited for the boys, I floated on my back counting stars and listening to the ocean. When the tide was low like this, it whispered and gurgled and it sounded like a lullaby. I wished I could stay forever, in this moment. Like in one of those plastic snowballs, one little moment frozen in time.

They came out together, Beck’s boys. I guessed they’d run into each other on the stairs. They were both wearing their swimming trunks. It occurred to me that I hadn’t seen Conrad in his trunks all summer, that we hadn’t swum in this pool since that first day. And Jeremiah, we’d only swum in the ocean once or twice. It had been a summer with hardly any swim time, except for when I swam with Cam or when I swam alone. The thought made me feel unspeakably sad, that this could be the last summer and we’d hardly swum together at all.

“Hello,” I said, still floating on my back.

Conrad dipped his toe in. “It’s kind of cold to swim, isn’t it?”

“Chicken,” I said, squawking loudly. “Just jump in and get it over with.”

They looked at each other. Then Jeremiah made a running leap and cannonballed in, and Conrad followed right behind him. They made two big splashes, and I swallowed a ton of water because I was smiling, but I didn’t care.

We swam over to the deep end, and I treaded water to stay afloat. Conrad reached over and pushed my bangs out of my eyes. It was a tiny gesture, but Jeremiah saw, and he turned away, swam closer to the edge of the pool.

For a second I felt sad, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, it came to me. A memory, pressed in my heart like a leaf in a book. I lifted my arms in the air and twirled around in circles, like a water ballerina.

Spinning, I began to recite, “Maggie and milly and molly and may / went down to the beach (to play one day) / and maggie discovered a shell that sang / so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles, and / milly befriended a stranded star / whose rays five languid fingers were—”

Jeremiah grinned. “And molly was chased by a horrible thing / which raced sideways while blowing bubbles: and / may came home with a smooth round stone / as small as a world and as large as alone. …”

Together, Conrad too, we all said, “For whatever we lose (like a you or a me) / it’s always ourselves we find in the sea.” And then there was this silence between us, and no one said anything.

It was Susannah’s favorite poem; she’d taught it to us kids a long time ago—we were on one of her guided nature walks where she pointed out shells and jellyfish. That day we marched down the beach, arms linked, and we recited it so loudly that I think we woke up the fish. We knew it like we knew the Pledge of Allegiance, by heart.

“This might be our last summer here,” I said suddenly.

“No way,” Jeremiah said, floating up next to me.

“Conrad’s going to college this fall, and you have football camp,” I reminded him. Even though Conrad going to college and Jeremiah going to football camp for two weeks didn’t really have anything to do with us not coming back next summer. I didn’t say what we were all thinking, that Susannah was sick, that she might never get better, that she was the string that tied us all together.

Conrad shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll always come back.”

Briefly I wondered if he meant just him and Jeremiah, and then he said, “All of us.”

It got quiet again, and then I had an idea. “Let’s make a whirlpool!” I said, clapping my hands together.

“You’re such a kid,” Conrad said, smiling at me and shaking his head. For the first time, it didn’t bother me when he called me a kid. It felt like a compliment.

I floated out to the middle of the pool. “Come on, guys!”

They swam over to me, and we made a circle and started to run as fast as we could. “Faster!” Jeremiah yelled, laughing.

Then we stopped, let our bodies go limp and get caught in the whirlpool we’d just made. I leaned my head back and let the current carry me.

chapter forty-six

When he called, I didn’t recognize his voice, partly because I wasn’t expecting it and partly because I was still half-asleep. He said, “I’m in my car on my way to your house. Can I see you?”

It was twelve thirty in the morning. Boston was five and a half hours away. He had driven all night. He wanted to see me.

I told him to park down the street and I would meet him on the corner, after my mother had gone to bed. He said he’d wait.

I turned the lights off and waited by the window, watching for the taillights. As soon as I saw his car, I wanted to run outside, but I had to wait. I could hear my mother rustling around in her room, and I knew she would read in bed for at least half an hour before she fell asleep. It felt like torture, knowing he was out there waiting for me, not being able to go to him.

In the dark I put on my scarf and hat that Granna knit me for Christmas. Then I shut my bedroom door and tiptoe down the hallway to my mother’s room, pressing my ear against the door. The light is off and I can hear her snoring softly. Steven’s not even home yet, which is lucky for me, because he’s a light sleeper just like our dad.

My mother is finally asleep; the house is still and silent. Our Christmas tree is still up. We keep the lights on all night because it makes it still feel like Christmas, like any minute, Santa could show up with gifts. I don’t bother leaving her a note. I’ll call her in the morning, when she wakes up and wonders where I am.

I creep down the stairs, careful on the creaky step in the middle, but once I’m out of the house, I’m flying down the front steps, across the frosty lawn. It crunches along the bottoms of my sneakers. I forgot to put on my coat. I remembered the scarf and hat, but no coat.

His car is on the corner, right where it’s supposed to be. The car is dark, no lights, and I open the passenger side door like I’ve done it a million times before. But I haven’t. I’ve never even been inside. I haven’t seen him since August.

I poke my head inside, but I don’t go in, not yet. I want to look at him first. I have to. It’s winter, and he’s wearing a gray fleece. His cheeks are pink from the cold, his tan has faded, but he still looks the same. “Hey,” I say, and then I climb inside.

“You’re not wearing a coat,” he says.

“It’s not that cold,” I say, even though it is, even though I’m shivering as I say it.

“Here,” he says, shrugging out of his fleece and handing it to me.

I put it on. It’s warm, and it doesn’t smell like cigarettes. It just smells like him. So Conrad quit smoking after all. The thought makes me smile.

He starts the engine.

I say, “I can’t believe you’re really here.”

He sounds almost shy when he says, “Me neither.” And then he hesitates. “Are you still coming with me?”

I can’t believe he even has to ask. I would go anywhere. “Yes,” I tell him. It feels like nothing else exists outside of that word, this moment. There’s just us. Everything that happened this past summer, and every summer before it, has all led up to this. To now.

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It's Not Summer Without You

Jenny Han

chapter one

JULY 2

It was a hot summer day in Cousins. I was lying by the pool with a magazine on my face. My mother was playing solitaire on the front porch, Susannah was inside puttering around the kitchen. She’d probably come out soon with a glass of sun tea and a book I should read. Something romantic.

Conrad and Jeremiah and Steven had been surfing all morning. There’d been a storm the night before. Conrad and Jeremiah came back to the house first. I heard them before I saw them. They walked up the steps, cracking up over how Steven had lost his shorts after a particularly ferocious wave. Conrad strode over to me, lifted the sweaty magazine from my face, and grinned. He said, “You have words on your cheeks.”

I squinted up at him. “What do they say?”

He squatted next to me and said, “I can’t tell. Let me see.” And then he peered at my face in his serious Conrad way. He leaned in, and he kissed me, and his lips were cold and salty from the ocean.

Then Jeremiah said, “You guys need to get a room,” but I knew he was joking. He winked at me as he came from behind, lifted Conrad up, and launched him into the pool.

Jeremiah jumped in too, and he yelled, “Come on, Belly!”

So of course I jumped too. The water felt fine. Better than fine. Just like always, Cousins was the only place I wanted to be.

“Hello? Did you hear anything I just said?”

I opened my eyes. Taylor was snapping her fingers in my face. “Sorry,” I said. “What were you saying?”

I wasn’t in Cousins. Conrad and I weren’t together, and Susannah was dead. Nothing would ever be the same again. It had been—How many days had it been? How many days exactly?—two months since Susannah had died and I still couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t let myself believe it. When a person you love dies, it doesn’t feel real. It’s like it’s happening to someone else. It’s someone else’s life. I’ve never been good with the abstract. What does it mean when someone is really and truly gone?

Sometimes I closed my eyes and in my head, I said over and over again, It isn’t true, it isn’t true, this isn’t real. This wasn’t my life. But it was my life; it was my life now. After.

I was in Marcy Yoo’s backyard. The boys were messing around in the pool and us girls were lying on beach towels, all lined up in a row. I was friends with Marcy, but the rest, Katie and Evelyn and those girls, they were more Taylor’s friends.

It was eighty-seven degrees already, and it was just after noon. It was going to be a hot one. I was on my stomach, and I could feel sweat pooling in the small of my back. I was starting to feel sun-sick. It was only the second day of July, and already, I was counting the days until summer was over.

“I said, what are you going to wear to Justin’s party?” Taylor repeated. She’d lined our towels up close, so it was like we were on one big towel.

“I don’t know,” I said, turning my head so we were face-to-face.

She had tiny sweat beads on her nose. Taylor always sweated first on her nose. She said, “I’m going to wear that new sundress I bought with my mom at the outlet mall.”

I closed my eyes again. I was wearing sunglasses, so she couldn’t tell if my eyes were open or not anyway. “Which one?”

“You know, the one with the little polka dots that ties around the neck. I showed it to you, like, two days ago.” Taylor let out an impatient little sigh.

“Oh, yeah,” I said, but I still didn’t remember and I knew Taylor could tell.

I started to say something else, something nice about the dress, but suddenly I felt ice-cold aluminum sticking to the back of my neck. I shrieked and there was Cory Wheeler, crouched down next to me with a dripping Coke can in his hand, laughing his head off.

I sat up and glared at him, wiping off my neck. I was so sick of today. I just wanted to go home. “What the crap, Cory!”

He was still laughing, which made me madder.

I said, “God, you’re so immature.”

“But you looked really hot,” he protested. “I was trying to cool you off.”

I didn’t answer him, I just kept my hand on the back of my neck. My jaw felt really tight, and I could feel all the other girls staring at me. And then Cory’s smile sort of slipped away and he said, “Sorry. You want this Coke?”

I shook my head, and he shrugged and retreated back over to the pool. I looked over and saw Katie and Evelyn making what’s-her-problem faces, and I felt embarrassed. Being mean to Cory was like being mean to a German shepherd puppy. There was just no sense in it. Too late, I tried to catch Cory’s eye, but he didn’t look back at me.

In a low voice Taylor said, “It was just a joke, Belly.”

I lay back down on my towel, this time faceup. I took a deep breath and let it out, slowly. The music from Marcy’s iPod deck was giving me a headache. It was too loud. And I actually was thirsty. I should have taken that Coke from Cory.

Taylor leaned over and pushed up my sunglasses so she could see my eyes. She peered at me. “Are you mad?”

“No. It’s just too hot out here.” I wiped sweat off my forehead with the back of my arm.

“Don’t be mad. Cory can’t help being an idiot around you. He likes you.”

“Cory doesn’t like me,” I said, looking away from her. But he sort of did like me, and I knew it. I just wished he didn’t.

“Whatever, he’s totally into you. I still think you should give him a chance. It’ll take your mind off of you-know-who.”

I turned my head away from her and she said, “How about I French braid your hair for the party tonight? I can do the front section and pin it to the side like I did last time.”

“Okay.”

“What are you going to wear?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Well, you have to look cute because everybody’s gonna be there,” Taylor said. “I’ll come over early and we can get ready together.”

Justin Ettelbrick had thrown a big blowout birthday party every July first since the eighth grade. By July, I was already at Cousins Beach, and home and school and school friends were a million miles away. I’d never once minded missing out, not even when Taylor told me about the cotton candy machine his parents had rented one year, or the fancy fireworks they shot off over the lake at midnight.

It was the first summer I would be at home for Justin’s party and it was the first summer I wasn’t going back to Cousins. And that, I minded. That, I mourned. I’d thought I’d be in Cousins every summer of my life. The summer house was the only place I wanted to be. It was the only place I ever wanted to be.

“You’re still coming, right?” Taylor asked me.

“Yeah. I told you I was.”

Her nose wrinkled. “I know, but—” Taylor’s voice broke off. “Never mind.”

I knew Taylor was waiting for things to go back to normal again, to be like before. But they could never be like before. I was never going to be like before.

I used to believe. I used to think that if I wanted it bad enough, wished hard enough, everything would work out the way it was supposed to. Destiny, like Susannah said. I wished for Conrad on every birthday, every shooting star, every lost eyelash, every penny in a fountain was dedicated to the one I loved. I thought it would always be that way.

Taylor wanted me to forget about Conrad, to just erase him from my mind and memory. She kept saying things like, “Everybody has to get over a first love, it’s a rite of passage.” But Conrad wasn’t just my first love. He wasn’t some rite of passage. He was so much more than that. He and Jeremiah and Susannah were my family. In my memory, the three of them would always be entwined, forever linked. There couldn’t be one without the others.

If I forgot Conrad, if I evicted him from my heart, pretended like he was never there, it would be like doing those things to Susannah. And that, I couldn’t do.

It's Not Summer Without You

Jenny Han

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To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Jenny Han

I like to save things. Not important things like whales or people or the environment. Silly things. Porcelain bells, the kind you get at souvenir shops. Cookie cutters you’ll never use, because who needs a cookie in the shape of a foot? Ribbons for my hair. Love letters. Of all the things I save, I guess you could say my love letters are my most prized possession.

I keep my letters in a teal hatbox my mom bought me from a vintage store downtown. They aren’t love letters that someone else wrote for me; I don’t have any of those. These are ones I’ve written. There’s one for every boy I’ve ever loved—five in all.

When I write, I hold nothing back. I write like he’ll never read it. Because he never will. Every secret thought, every careful observation, everything I’ve saved up inside me, I put it all in the letter. When I’m done, I seal it, I address it, and then I put it in my teal hatbox.

They’re not love letters in the strictest sense of the word. My letters are for when I don’t want to be in love anymore. They’re for good-bye. Because after I write my letter, I’m no longer consumed by my all-consuming love. I can eat my cereal and not wonder if he likes bananas over his Cheerios too; I can sing along to love songs and not be singing them to him. If love is like a possession, maybe my letters are like my exorcisms. My letters set me free. Or at least they’re supposed to.

JOSH IS MARGOT’S BOYFRIEND, BUT I GUESS you could say my whole family is a little in love with him. It’s hard to say who most of all. Before he was Margot’s boyfriend, he was just Josh. He was always there. I say always, but I guess that’s not true. He moved next door five years ago but it feels like always.

My dad loves Josh because he’s a boy and my dad is surrounded by girls. I mean it: all day long he is surrounded by females. My dad is an ob-gyn, and he also happens to be the father of three daughters, so it’s like girls, girls, girls all day. He also likes Josh because Josh likes comics and he’ll go fishing with him. My dad tried to take us fishing once, and I cried when my shoes got mud on them, and Margot cried when her book got wet, and Kitty cried because Kitty was still practically a baby.

Kitty loves Josh because he’ll play cards with her and not get bored. Or at least pretend to not get bored. They make deals with each other—if I win this next hand, you have to make me a toasted crunchy-peanut-butter-sandwich, no crusts. That’s Kitty. Inevitably there won’t be crunchy peanut butter and Josh will say too bad, pick something else. But then Kitty will wear him down and he’ll run out and buy some, because that’s Josh.

If I had to say why Margot loves him, I think maybe I would say it’s because we all do.

We are in the living room, Kitty is pasting pictures of dogs to a giant piece of cardboard. There’s paper and scraps all around her. Humming to herself, she says, “When Daddy asks me what I want for Christmas, I am just going to say, ‘Pick any one of these breeds and we’ll be good.’”

Margot and Josh are on the couch; I’m lying on the floor, watching TV. Josh popped a big bowl of popcorn, and I devote myself to it, handfuls and handfuls of it.

A commercial comes on for perfume: a girl is running around the streets of Paris in an orchid-colored halter dress that is thin as tissue paper. What I wouldn’t give to be that girl in that tissue-paper dress running around Paris in springtime! I sit up so suddenly I choke on a kernel of popcorn. Between coughs I say, “Margot, let’s meet in Paris for my spring break!” I’m already picturing myself twirling with a pistachio macaron in one hand and a raspberry one in the other.

Margot’s eyes light up. “Do you think Daddy will let you?”

“Sure, it’s culture. He’ll have to let me.” But it’s true that I’ve never flown by myself before. And also I’ve never even left the country before. Would Margot meet me at the airport, or would I have to find my own way to the hostel?

Josh must see the sudden worry on my face because he says, “Don’t worry. Your dad will definitely let you go if I’m with you.”

I brighten. “Yeah! We can stay at hostels and just eat pastries and cheese for all our meals.”

“We can go to Jim Morrison’s grave!” Josh throws in.

“We can go to a parfumerie and get our personal scents done!” I cheer, and Josh snorts.

“Um, I’m pretty sure ‘getting our scents done’ at a parfumerie would cost the same as a week’s stay at the hostel,” he says. He nudges Margot. “Your sister suffers from delusions of grandeur.”

“She is the fanciest of the three of us,” Margot agrees.

“What about me?” Kitty whimpers.

“You?” I scoff. “You’re the least fancy Song girl. I have to beg you to wash your feet at night, much less take a shower.”

Kitty’s face gets pinched and red. “I wasn’t talking about that, you dodo bird. I was talking about Paris.”

Airily, I wave her off. “You’re too little to stay at a hostel.”

She crawls over to Margot and climbs in her lap, even though she’s nine and nine is too big to sit in people’s laps. “Margot, you’ll let me go, won’t you?”

“Maybe it could be a family vacation,” Margot says, kissing her cheek. “You and Lara Jean and Daddy could all come.”

I frown. That’s not at all the Paris trip I was imagining. Over Kitty’s head Josh mouths to me, We’ll talk later, and I give him a discreet thumbs-up.

* * *

It’s later that night; Josh is long gone. Kitty and our dad are asleep. We are in the kitchen. Margot is at the table on her computer; I am sitting next to her, rolling cookie dough into balls and dropping them in cinnamon and sugar. Snickerdoodles to get back in Kitty’s good graces. Earlier, when I went in to say good night, Kitty rolled over and wouldn’t speak to me because she’s still convinced I’m going to try to cut her out of the Paris trip. My plan is to put the snickerdoodles on a plate right next to her pillow so she wakes up to the smell of fresh-baked cookies.

Margot’s being extra quiet, and then, out of nowhere, she looks up from her computer and says, “I broke up with Josh tonight. After dinner.”

My cookie-dough ball falls out of my fingers and into the sugar bowl.

“I mean, it was time,” she says. Her eyes aren’t red-rimmed; she hasn’t been crying, I don’t think. Her voice is calm and even. Anyone looking at her would think she was fine. Because Margot is always fine, even when she’s not.

“I don’t see why you had to break up,” I say. “Just ’cause you’re going to college doesn’t mean you have to break up.”

“Lara Jean, I’m going to Scotland, not UVA. Saint Andrews is nearly four thousand miles away.” She pushes up her glasses. “What would be the point?”

I can’t even believe she would say that. “The point is, it’s Josh. Josh who loves you more than any boy has ever loved a girl!”

Margot rolls her eyes at this. She thinks I’m being dramatic, but I’m not. It’s true—that’s how much Josh loves Margot. He would never so much as look at another girl.

Suddenly she says, “Do you know what Mommy told me once?”

“What?” For a moment I forget all about Josh. Because no matter what I am doing in life, if Margot and I are in the middle of an argument, if I am about to get hit by a car, I will always stop and listen to a story about Mommy. Any detail, any remembrance that Margot has, I want to have it too. I’m better off than Kitty, though. Kitty doesn’t have one memory of Mommy that we haven’t given her. We’ve told her so many stories so many times that they’re hers now. “Remember that time . . . ,” she’ll say. And then she’ll tell the story like she was there and not just a little baby.

“She told me to try not to go to college with a boyfriend. She said she didn’t want me to be the girl crying on the phone with her boyfriend and saying no to things instead of yes.”

Scotland is Margot’s yes, I guess. Absently, I scoop up a mound of cookie dough and pop it in my mouth.

“You shouldn’t eat raw cookie dough,” Margot says.

I ignore her. “Josh would never hold you back from anything. He’s not like that. Remember how when you decided to run for student-body president, he was your campaign manager? He’s your biggest fan!”

At this, the corners of Margot’s mouth turn down, and I get up and fling my arms around her neck. She leans her head back and smiles up at me. “I’m okay,” she says, but she isn’t, I know she isn’t.

“It’s not too late, you know. You can go over there right now and tell him you changed your mind.”

Margot shakes her head. “It’s done, Lara Jean.” I release her and she closes her laptop. “When will the first batch be ready? I’m hungry.”

I look at the magnetic egg timer on the fridge. “Four more minutes.” I sit back down and say, “I don’t care what you say, Margot. You guys aren’t done. You love him too much.”

She shakes her head. “Lara Jean,” she begins, in her patient Margot voice, like I am a child and she is a wise old woman of forty-two.

I wave a spoonful of cookie dough under Margot’s nose, and she hesitates and then opens her mouth. I feed it to her like a baby. “Wait and see, you and Josh will be back together in a day, maybe two.” But even as I’m saying it, I know it’s not true. Margot’s not the kind of girl to break up and get back together on a whim; once she’s decided something, that’s it. There’s no waffling, no regrets. It’s like she said: when she’s done, she’s just done.

I wish (and this is a thought I’ve had many, many times, too many times to count) I was more like Margot. Because sometimes it feels like I’ll never be done.

Later, after I’ve washed the dishes and plated the cookies and set them on Kitty’s pillow, I go to my room. I don’t turn the light on. I go to my window. Josh’s light is still on.

THE NEXT MORNING, MARGOT IS MAKING coffee and I am pouring cereal in bowls, and I say the thing I’ve been thinking all morning. “Just so you know, Daddy and Kitty are going to be really upset.” When Kitty and I were brushing our teeth just now, I was tempted to go ahead and spill the beans, but Kitty was still mad at me from yesterday, so I kept quiet. She didn’t even acknowledge my cookies, though I know she ate them because all that was left on the plate were crumbs.

Margot lets out a heavy sigh. “So I’m supposed to stay with Josh because of you and Daddy and Kitty?”

“No, I’m just telling you.”

“It’s not like he would come over here that much once I was gone, anyway.”

I frown. This didn’t occur to me, that Josh would stop coming over because Margot was gone. He was coming over long before they were ever a couple, so I don’t see why he should stop. “He might,” I say. “He really loves Kitty.”

She pushes the start button on the coffee machine. I’m watching her super carefully because Margot’s always been the one to make the coffee and I never have, and now that she’s leaving (only six more days), I’d better know how. With her back to me she says, “Maybe I won’t even mention it to them.”

“Um, I think they’ll figure it out when he’s not at the airport, Gogo.” Gogo is my nickname for Margot. As in go-go boots. “How many cups of water did you put in there? And how many spoons of coffee beans?”

“I’ll write it all down for you,” Margot assures me. “In the notebook.”

We keep a house notebook by the fridge. Margot’s idea, of course. It has all the important numbers and Daddy’s schedule and Kitty’s carpool. “Make sure you put in the number for the new dry cleaners,” I say.

“Already done.” Margot slices a banana for her cereal: each slice is perfectly thin. “And also, Josh wouldn’t have come to the airport with us anyway. You know how I feel about sad good-byes.” Margot makes a face, like Ugh, emotions.

I do know.

* * *

When Margot decided to go to college in Scotland, it felt like a betrayal. Even though I knew it was coming, because of course she was going to go to college somewhere far away. And of course she was going to go to college in Scotland and study anthropology, because she is Margot, the girl with the maps and the travel books and the plans. Of course she would leave us one day.

I’m still mad at her, just a little. Just a teeny-tiny bit. Obviously I know it’s not her fault. But she’s going so far away, and we always said we’d be the Song girls forever. Margot first, me in the middle, and my sister Kitty last. On her birth certificate she is Katherine; to us she is Kitty. Occasionally we call her Kitten, because that’s what I called her when she was born: she looked like a scrawny, hairless kitten.

We are the three Song girls. There used to be four. My mom, Eve Song. Evie to my dad, Mommy to us, Eve to everyone else. Song is, was, my mom’s last name. Our last name is Covey—Covey like lovey, not like cove. But the reason we are the Song girls and not the Covey girls is my mom used to say that she was a Song girl for life, and Margot said then we should be too. We all have Song for our middle name, and we look more Song than Covey anyway, more Korean than white. At least Margot and I do; Kitty looks most like Daddy: her hair is light brown like his. People say I look the most like Mommy, but I think Margot does, with her high cheekbones and dark eyes. It’s been almost six years now, and sometimes it feels like just yesterday she was here, and sometimes it feels like she never was, only in dreams.

She’d mopped the floors that morning; they were shiny and everything smelled like lemons and clean house. The phone was ringing in the kitchen, she came running in to answer it, and she slipped. She hit her head on the floor, and she was unconscious, but then she woke up and she was fine. That was her lucid interval. That’s what they call it. A little while later she said she had a headache, she went to lie down on the couch, and then she didn’t wake up.

Margot was the one who found her. She was twelve. She took care of everything: she called 911; she called Daddy; she told me to watch over Kitty, who was only three. I turned on the TV for Kitty in the playroom and I sat with her. That’s all I did. I don’t know what I would have done if Margot hadn’t been there. Even though Margot is only two years older than me, I look up to her more than anybody.

When other adults find out that my dad is a single father of three girls, they shake their heads in admiration, like How does he do it? How does he ever manage that all by himself? The answer is Margot. She’s been an organizer from the start, everything labeled and scheduled and arranged in neat, even rows.

Margot is a good girl, and I guess Kitty and I have followed her lead. I’ve never cheated or gotten drunk or smoked a cigarette or even had a boyfriend. We tease Daddy and say how lucky he is that we’re all so good, but the truth is, we’re the lucky ones. He’s a really good dad. And he tries hard.He doesn’t always understand us, but he tries, and that’s the important thing. We three Song girls have an unspoken pact: to make life as easy as possible for Daddy. But then again, maybe it’s not so unspoken, because how many times have I heard Margot say, “Shh, be quiet, Daddy’s taking a nap before he has to go back to the hospital,” or “Don’t bother Daddy with that; do it yourself”?

I’ve asked Margot what she thinks it would have been like if Mommy hadn’t died. Like would we spend more time with our Korean side of the family and not just on Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day? Or—

Margot doesn’t see the point in wondering. This is our life; there’s no use in asking what if. No one could ever give you the answers. I try, I really do, but it’s hard for me to accept this way of thinking. I’m always wondering about the what-ifs, about the road not taken.

* * *

Daddy and Kitty come downstairs at the same time. Margot pours Daddy a cup of coffee, black, and I pour milk in Kitty’s cereal bowl. I push it in front of her, and she turns her head away from me and gets a yogurt out of the fridge. She takes it into the living room to eat in front of the TV. So she’s still mad.

“I’m going to go to Costco later today, so you girls make a list for whatever you need,” Daddy asks, taking a big sip of coffee. “I think I’ll pick up some New York strips for dinner. We can grill out. Should I get one for Josh, too?”

My head whips in Margot’s direction. She opens her mouth and closes it. Then she says, “No, just get enough for the four of us, Daddy.”

I give her a reproving look, and she ignores me. I’ve never known Margot to chicken out before, but I suppose in matters of the heart, there’s no predicting how a person will or won’t behave.

SO NOW IT’S THE LAST DAYS OF SUMMER and our last days with Margot. Maybe it’s not altogether such a bad thing that she broke up with Josh; this way we have more time with just us sisters. I’m sure she must have thought of that. I’m sure it was part of the plan.

We’re driving out of our neighborhood when we see Josh run past. He joined track last year, so now he’s always running. Kitty yells his name, but the windows are up, and it’s no use anyway—he pretends not to hear. “Turn around,” Kitty urges Margot. “Maybe he wants to come with us.”

“This is a Song-girls-only day,” I tell her.

We spend the rest of the morning at Target, picking up last minute things like Honey Nut Chex mix for the flight and deodorant and hair ties. We let Kitty push the cart so she can do that thing where she gets a running start and then rides the cart like she’s pushing a chariot. Margot only lets her do it a couple of times before she makes her stop, though, so as not to annoy other customers.

Next we go back home and make chicken salad with green grapes for lunch and then it’s nearly time for Kitty’s swim meet. We pack a picnic dinner of ham-and-cheese sandwiches and fruit salad and bring Margot’s laptop to watch movies on, because swim meets can go long into the night. We make a sign, too, that says Go Kitty Go! I draw a dog on it. Daddy ends up missing the swim meet because he is delivering a baby, and as far as excuses go, it’s a pretty good one. (It was a girl, and they named her Patricia Rose after her two grandmothers. Daddy always finds out the first and middle name for me. It’s the first thing I ask when he gets home from a delivery.)

Kitty’s so excited about winning two first-place ribbons and one second place that she forgets to ask where Josh is until we’re in the car driving back home. She’s in the backseat and she’s got her towel wrapped around her head like a turban and her ribbons dangling from her ears like earrings. She leans forward and says, “Hey! Why didn’t Josh come to my meet?”

I can see Margot hesitate, so I answer before she can. Maybe the only thing I’m better at than Margot is lying. “He had to work at the bookstore tonight. He really wanted to make it, though.” Margot reaches across the console and gives my hand a grateful squeeze.

Sticking out her lower lip, Kitty says, “That was the last regular meet! He promised he’d come watch me swim.”

“It was a last-minute thing,” I say. “He couldn’t get out of working the shift because one of his coworkers had an emergency.”

Kitty nods begrudgingly. Little as she is, she understands emergency shifts.

“Let’s get frozen custards,” Margot says suddenly.

Kitty lights up, and Josh and his imaginary emergency shift is forgotten. “Yeah! I want a waffle cone! Can I get a waffle cone with two scoops? I want mint chip and peanut brittle. No, rainbow sherbet and double fudge. No, wait—”

I twist around in my seat. “You can’t finish two scoops and a waffle cone,” I tell her. “Maybe you could finish two scoops in a cup, but not in a cone.”

“Yes, I can. Tonight I can. I’m starving.”

“Fine, but you better finish the whole thing.” I shake my finger at her and say it like a threat, which makes her roll her eyes and giggle. As for me, I’ll get what I always get—the cherry chocolate-chunk custard in a sugar cone.

Margot pulls into the drive-thru, and as we wait our turn, I say, “I bet they don’t have frozen custard in Scotland.”

“Probably not,” she says.

“You won’t have another one of these until Thanksgiving,” I say.

Margot looks straight ahead. “Christmas,” she says, correcting me. “Thanksgiving’s too short to fly all that way, remember?”

“Thanksgiving’s gonna suck.” Kitty pouts.

I’m silent. We’ve never had a Thanksgiving without Margot. She always does the turkey and the broccoli casserole and the creamed onions. I do the pies (pumpkin and pecan) and the mashed potatoes. Kitty is the taste tester and the table setter. I don’t know how to roast a turkey. And both of our grandmothers will be there, and Nana, Daddy’s mother, likes Margot best of all of us. She says Kitty drains her and I’m too dreamy-eyed.

All of a sudden I feel panicky and it’s hard to breathe and I couldn’t care less about cherry chocolate-chunk custard. I can’t picture Thanksgiving without Margot. I can’t even picture next Monday without her. I know most sisters don’t get along, but I’m closer to Margot than I am to anybody in the world. How can we be the Song girls without Margot?

MY OLDEST FRIEND CHRIS SMOKES, SHE hooks up with boys she doesn’t know hardly at all, and she’s been suspended twice. One time she had to go before the court for truancy. I never knew what truancy was before I met Chris. FYI, it’s when you skip so much school you’re in trouble with the law.

I’m pretty sure that if Chris and I met each other now, we wouldn’t be friends. We’re as different as different can be. But it wasn’t always this way. In sixth grade Chris liked stationery and sleepovers and staying up all night watching John Hughes movies, just like me. But by eighth grade she was sneaking out after my dad fell asleep to meet boys she met at the mall. They’d drop her back off before it got light outside. I’d stay up until she came back, terrified she wouldn’t make it home before my dad woke up. She always made it back in time though.

Chris isn’t the kind of friend you call every night or have lunch with every day. She is like a street cat, she comes and goes as she pleases. She can’t be tied down to a place or a person. Sometimes I won’t see Chris for days and then in the middle of the night there will be a knock at my bedroom window and it’ll be Chris, crouched in the magnolia tree. I keep my window unlocked for her in case. Chris and Margot can’t stand each other. Chris thinks Margot is uptight, and Margot thinks Chris is bipolar. She thinks Chris uses me; Chris thinks Margot controls me. I think maybe they’re both a little bit right. But the important thing, the real thing, is Chris and I understand each other, which I think counts for a lot more than people realize.

* * *

Chris calls me on the way over to our house; she says her mom’s being a beotch and she’s coming over for a couple hours and do we have any food?

Chris and I are sharing a bowl of leftover gnocchi in the living room when Margot comes home from dropping Kitty off at her swim team’s end-of-season barbecue. “Oh, hey,” she says. Then she spots Chris’s glass of Diet Coke on the coffee table, sans coaster. “Can you please use a coaster?”

As soon as Margot’s up the stairs, Chris says, “Gawd! Why is your sister such a beotch?”

I slide a coaster under her glass. “You think everyone’s a beotch today.”

“That’s because everyone is.” Chris rolls her eyes toward the ceiling. Loudly, she says, “She needs to pull that stick out of her ass.”

From her room Margot yells, “I heard that!”

“I meant for you to!” Chris yells back, scraping up the last piece of gnocchi for herself.

I sigh. “She’s leaving so soon.”

Snickering, Chris says, “So is Joshy, like, going to light a candle for her every night until she comes back home?”

I hesitate. While I’m not sure if it’s still supposed to be a secret, I am sure that Margot wouldn’t want Chris knowing any of her personal business. All I say is, “I’m not sure.”

“Wait a minute. Did she dump him?” Chris demands.

Reluctantly I nod. “Don’t say anything to her, though,” I warn. “She’s still really sad about it.”

“Margot? Sad?” Chris picks at her nails. “Margot doesn’t have normal human emotions like the rest of us.”

“You just don’t know her,” I say. “Besides, we can’t all be like you.”

She grins a toothy grin. She has sharp incisors, which make her look always a little bit hungry. “True.”

Chris is pure emotion. She screams at the drop of a hat. She says sometimes you have to scream out emotions; if you don’t, they’ll fester. The other day she screamed at a lady at the grocery store for accidentally stepping on her toes. I don’t think she’s in any danger of her emotions festering.

“I just can’t believe that in a few days she’ll be gone,” I say, feeling sniffly all of a sudden.

“She’s not dying, Lara Jean. There’s nothing to get all boo-hoo about.” Chris pulls at a loose string on her red shorts. They’re so short that when she’s sitting, you can see her underwear. Which are red to match her shorts. “In fact, I think this is good for you. It’s about time you did your own thing and stopped just listening to whatever Queen Margot says. This is your junior year, beotch. This is when it’s supposed to get good. French some guys, live a little, you know?”

“I live plenty,” I say.

“Yeah, at the nursing home.” Chris snickers and I glare at her.

Margot started volunteering at the Belleview Retirement Community when she got her driver’s license; it was her job to help host cocktail hour for the residents. I’d help sometimes. We’d set out peanuts and pour drinks and sometimes Margot would play the piano, but usually Stormy hogged that. Stormy is the Belleview diva. She rules the roost. I like listening to her stories. And Miss Mary, she might not be so good at conversation due to her dementia, but she taught me how to knit.

They have a new volunteer there now, but I know that at Belleview it really is the more the merrier, because most of the residents get so few visitors. I should go back soon; I miss going there. And I for sure don’t appreciate Chris making fun of it.

“Those people at Belleview have lived more life than everyone we know combined,” I tell her. “There’s this one lady, Stormy, she was a USO girl! She used to get a hundred letters a day from soldiers who were in love with her. And there was this one veteran who lost his leg—he sent her a diamond ring!”

Chris looks interested all of a sudden. “Did she keep it?”

“She did,” I admit. I think it was wrong of her to keep the ring since she had no intention of marrying him, but she showed it to me, and it was beautiful. It was a pink diamond, very rare. I bet it’s worth so much money now.

“I guess Stormy sounds kind of like a badass,” Chris says begrudgingly.

“Maybe you could come with me to Belleview sometime,” I suggest. “We could go to their cocktail hour. Mr. Perelli loves to dance with new girls. He’ll teach you how to fox-trot.”

Chris makes a horrible face like I suggested we go hang out at the town dump. “No, thanks. How about I take you dancing?” She nudges her chin toward upstairs. “Now that your sister’s leaving, we can have some real fun. You know I always have fun.”

It’s true, Chris does always have fun. Sometimes a little too much fun, but fun nonetheless.

THE NIGHT BEFORE MARGOT LEAVES, ALL three of us are in her room helping pack up the last little things. Kitty is organizing Margot’s bath stuff, packing it nice and neat in the clear shower caddy. Margot is trying to decide which coat to bring.

“Should I bring my peacoat and my puffy coat or just my peacoat?” she asks me.

“Just the peacoat,” I say. “You can dress that up or down.” I’m lying on her bed directing the packing process. “Kitty, make sure the lotion cap is on tight.”

“It’s brand-new—course it’s on tight!” Kitty growls, but she double-checks.

“It gets cold in Scotland sooner than it does here,” Margot said, folding the coat and setting it on top of her suitcase. “I think I’ll just bring both.”

“I don’t know why you asked if you already knew what you were going to do,” I say. “Also, I thought you said you were coming home for Christmas. You’re still coming home for Christmas, right?”

“Yes, if you’ll stop being a brat,” Margot says.

Honestly, Margot isn’t even packing that much. She doesn’t need a lot. If it was me, I’d have packed up my whole room, but not Margot. Her room looks the same, almost.

Margot sits down next to me, and Kitty climbs up and sits at the foot of the bed. “Everything’s changing,” I say, sighing.

Margot makes a face and puts her arm around me. “Nothing’s changing, not really. We’re the Song girls forever, remember?”

Our father stands in the doorway. He knocks, even though the door is open and we can clearly see it is him. “I’m going to start packing up the car now,” he announces. We watch from the bed as he lugs one of the suitcases downstairs, and then he comes up for the other one. Drily he says, “Oh no, don’t get up. Don’t trouble yourselves.”

“Don’t worry, we won’t,” we sing out.

For the past week our father has been in spring-cleaning mode, even though it isn’t spring. He’s getting rid of everything—the bread machine we never used, CDs, old blankets, our mother’s old typewriter. It’s all going to Goodwill. A psychiatrist or someone could probably connect it to Margot’s leaving for college, but I can’t explain the exact significance of it. Whatever it is, it’s annoying. I had to shoo him away from my glass-unicorn collection twice.

I lay down my head in Margot’s lap. “So you really are coming home for Christmas, right?”

“Right.”

“I wish I could come with you.” Kitty pouts. “You’re nicer than Lara Jean.”

I give her a pinch.

“See?” she crows.

“Lara Jean will be nice,” Margot says, “as long as you behave. And you both have to take care of Daddy. Make sure he doesn’t work too many Saturdays. Make sure he takes the car in for inspection next month. And make sure you buy coffee filters—you’re always forgetting to buy coffee filters.”

“Yes, drill sergeant,” Kitty and I chorus. I search Margot’s face for sadness or fear or worry, for some sign that she is scared to go so far away, that she will miss us as much as we will miss her. I don’t see it, though.

The three of us sleep in Margot’s room that night.

Kitty falls asleep first, as always. I lie in the dark beside her with my eyes open. I can’t sleep. The thought that tomorrow night Margot won’t be in this room—it makes me so sad I can hardly bear it. I hate change more than almost anything.

In the dark next to me Margot asks, “Lara Jean . . . do you think you’ve ever been in love before? Real love?”

She catches me off guard; I don’t have an answer ready for her. I’m trying to think of one, but she’s already talking again.

Wistfully, she says, “I wish I’d been in love more than once. I think you should fall in love at least twice in high school.” Then she lets out a little sigh and falls asleep. Margot falls asleep like that—one dreamy sigh and she’s off to never-never land, just like that.

* * *

I wake up in the middle of the night and Margot’s not there. Kitty’s curled up on her side next to me, but no Margot. It’s pitch dark; only the moonlight filters through the curtains. I crawl out of bed and move to the window. My breath catches. There they are: Josh and Margot standing in the driveway. Margot’s face is turned away from him, toward the moon. Josh is crying. They aren’t touching. There’s enough space between them for me to know that Margot hasn’t changed her mind.

I drop the curtain and find my way back to the bed, where Kitty has rolled farther into the center. I push her back a few inches so there will be room for Margot. I wish I hadn’t seen that. It was too personal. Too real. It was supposed to be just for them. If there was a way for me to unsee it, I would.

I turn on my side and close my eyes. What must it be like, to have a boy like you so much he cries for you? And not just any boy. Josh. Our Josh.

To answer her question: yes, I think I have been in real love. Just once, though. With Josh. Our Josh.

To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Jenny Han

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Burn for Burn

Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian

KAT

The clock on my dashboard reads a quarter to two in the morning.

I check my cell phone one last time before chucking it on the backseat. No calls, no texts. Nothing. She’s not coming.

Why am I such an idiot?

I should have kept this whole revenge idea to myself. Revenge is supposed to be a solitary thing, I think I heard that somewhere. And I don’t know what help I thought Lillia could give me. Her mind can’t go to the dark places mine does. She’s way too pure for that. And even with whatever’s going on between Lillia and Rennie, there’s no way Lillia would ever betray her best friend. Actually, knowing Lillia, she’s probably holding up her phone so she and Rennie can laugh at me. I got too excited, and now look. I’m going to be done before I even get started.

I’m just gonna go home and work on my early decision app to Oberlin. That’s the only thing that will get me through this year—the thought of finally leaving this island for good.

I pull into the ferry parking lot to turn around. The lights are off, the place is cleared out, except for one girl sitting on the curb. She’s got her elbows on her knees, her head in her hands, and her blond hair over one shoulder.

I think about just cruising right past, but something makes me drive over. As I get close, I see that it’s the girl from the bathroom.

“Bathroom girl,” I say, pulling to a stop.

“My name’s Mary,” she says. She’s chewing on a piece of hair.

“I know,” I lie. “I was being funny.” I shake my head and start over. “What the hell are you doing out so late?”

Her eyes are wide and frantic. “I have to get out off the island.”

“Well, you know it’s almost two in the morning, right? There’s not going to be another ferry until tomorrow. You missed the last one by, like, three hours.”

Mary doesn’t say anything. She just stares off toward the piers. You can hardly tell water from the sky. Everything’s black. “I think I’m losing my mind.”

She says it, and honestly, I believe her. This girl is totally weird. Anyway, I should get down to the Yacht Club. On the miniscule chance that Lillia does show up, I want to be there. “Do you want a ride home or something?” I ask Mary, hoping her answer is no.

“I’m just going to wait. Maybe I’ll get up the guts to leave by the morning.”

“You’re going to sit here all night?”

“It’s just a few more hours.”

“Where’s all your clothes and stuff? Didn’t you move back here with anything?”

“I—I’ll get it some other time.”

This is crazy. Girlfriend is full-on freaking out. “Is this about Reeve?”

Mary lowers her eyes. “It’s always been about Reeve.”

I’m about to say Screw him—but before I can, I see Lillia’s silver Audi fly down the road and take the first right into the Yacht Club parking lot. I can’t believe it. She showed. She actually showed.

“Get in,” I tell Mary, because I can’t leave her here alone in the dark.

“I—”

“Hurry up!”

For a second, Mary looks like she’s going to argue with me. If she does, I’m out of here. I don’t have time to baby her. Lillia might not even get out of the car if she doesn’t see me waiting there. Mary hesitates and then she tries to open the door, but it’s stuck. “It’s locked.”

“Let go of the handle,” I say, and push the unlock button, but when Mary tries the door, it still won’t open. God. “Just hop in, all right!”

“Who are you chasing?” she asks, as I gun it to close the distance between us and Lillia’s taillights.

I don’t answer her. I just drive.

When we get into the parking lot, Lillia’s standing by her car. She’s got on a tight hooded sweatshirt, rolled-up pajama shorts with pink and red hearts on them, and flip-flops. Her hair is pulled up into a long ponytail. I think, from the way the moon hits it, that it’s wet. She must have just taken her bath. That’s a weird thing about Lillia, she always took a bath every night like a kid. I guess some things don’t change.

“You’re late, Kat,” she says. Then she notices Mary with me, and her grip tightens around her car keys.

I hurry out of the car and walk over. I’m excited and relieved Lillia’s here but trying to hide it. “She needed a ride,” I whisper. “Don’t worry. It’s cool.”

“Kat—” Lillia’s giving me a death glare. “I’m not saying anything in front of her!”

I guess Mary can hear us, because she calls out, “It’s fine, I can leave.” She climbs out of the car.

I hold up my hand for Lillia to give me a second and look back at Mary. I say, “Leave Jar Island tomorrow morning like a scared little baby?”

“I am scared. I’m scared out of my mind.”

“Of Reeve Tabatsky?” I’m actually pissed now. This girl needs to get a backbone, stat. “I won’t let him touch you.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” Mary covers her face with her hands. “It’s me. I’m the problem. I—I just can’t get over it. I can’t move on.”

“Well, yeah. Because you don’t have any closure. The wrong hasn’t been made right. Reeve’s never gotten what’s coming to him.”

Lillia shakes her head. “Forget this. I’m out.” She clicks her car alarm. The headlights flash on and off like a lighthouse and the doors unlock.

I sidle up to her car cover the door handle with my back so she can’t open it. “Don’t leave now. You wouldn’t have come here if you didn’t want to get back at Alex as badly as I want to get Rennie.”

Mary slowly approaches us. “What did Alex do to you?”

Lillia hesitates before saying, “He didn’t do anything to me. He did something to my sister.”

Yeah, Nadia and me both. Not that I’m not scarred or anything. It was just a stupid hookup. I’m over it. Almost.

Mary says, “I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to intrude. I’m going to go. And listen, I promise I won’t tell a soul. You can trust me. I know more than maybe anyone else on the island how this kind of thing can weigh you down. I just . . . I think it’s really cool you both are going to do something about it.” She turns around, and starts walking away, back toward the ferry. “Good luck.”

Lillia and I look at each other. “Wait!” I call out. Mary turns around. “You want in on this, Mary? Help us . . . and we’ll help you take down Reeve.” I’m afraid to look at Lillia, because I know she’s probably pissed at me right now. But she doesn’t say anything. And she doesn’t leave, either.

“Why would you do that? You don’t even know me.”

Mary’s staring at me all intense and unblinking, and it throws me off. It takes me a sec to recover. I say, “I don’t have to know you to see that you’re a total effing mess over whatever happened, like, years ago. And hey, it wouldn’t be a free ride. You’d have to get your hands dirty too. But we’d be in it together. The three of us.”

Mary looks at me and Lillia for a long moment. So long I start to get antsy. At last she says, “If you help me get Reeve, I’ll do whatever it is that you want.”

Lillia’s doesn’t move. Her lips are tight and she’s shaking her head. “I don’t know.”

“Think about it,” I tell her. I’m so psyched, I’m practically bouncing on my toes. “Mary’s new. No one even knows her, much less suspects her. Plus, with one other person, it’ll be easier on both of us.” She doesn’t look convinced. I throw my hands in the air and say, “You trusted me enough to come here, didn’t you? All you need to do is trust me just a little bit more. I’ve got a good feeling about this.”

Biting her lip, Lillia says, “So we’re going to get revenge on Rennie, Alex, and now Reeve? You’re basically asking me to take down everyone in my group.”

She has a point. Maybe you shouldn’t be friends with such jerks is right there on the tip of my tongue. But I swallow that down and go with diplomacy. “I hear you,” I say, nodding. “You’ve got the most to lose, I get that. So we’ll take care of Alex first.” Pointing, I say, “Let’s go scheme where we’re not out in the open. My boat’s parked down that way.”

I lead the way along the dock with the moon at my back. Mary’s next to me, and Lillia a few steps behind.

As we walk, my mind is racing with possibilities. How we can do this, what will be the best way to get started. I’ve already given it some thought, just in case Lillia did show up tonight. But now that Mary’s in the mix too, I’ve got to make a few quick adjustments. All I know is that I have to seem prepared, for Lillia’s sake, to put her mind at ease. That girl is as skittish as a cat in a thunderstorm. One hiccup and she’ll bolt.

When Mary asks me if I own one of these boats, pointing at the souped up yachts, I barely hear her. She has to ask me again. Shaking my head, I say, “Not exactly.”

Because I work at the club, I get to park my boat for free. But not here with these boats, obviously. Mine’s tied up back behind the gas pumps on an older stretch of dock where my boss keeps his junkers, the broken old boats he’s bought cheap to strip for parts.

“Be careful,” I tell them. “The planks along this dock are half rotted and there’re lots of rusted nail heads poking up through the cracks. I think I still have a splinter stuck in my heel. This jerk pulled his yacht in too fast and made a wake so big that it rocked me right off my boat.”

“That sucks,” Mary says.

I nod. “And he barely even said sorry. Rich people never say sorry.”

Lillia rolls her eyes but keeps her mouth shut.

I take the tarp off my Catalina Daysailer, fold it up, and put it in the hatch. It’s been a while since I’ve had it out on the water. Maybe not even since June, which is crazy. But the thing is, Alex and I would always hang out on his boat, because it had a fridge to keep our drinks cool and leather bucket seats that reclined, and an amazing stereo system. For some weird reason, I feel guilty about this. About forgetting who I was before I met him. The things that used to be important to me. Fixing up my boat, hanging out with my real friends. I never thought I’d be one of those girls, those girls that compromise who they are just for a guy. Especially some two-timing wanna-be player like Alex Lind.

“Get in,” I say, hooking my floodlight up to the battery. It sends a bright beam out through the night, lighting up the caps of the waves. Perfect.

Lillia takes one step on board and freezes as the boat sways. Then she hops off like a scared bunny rabbit. She backs right into Mary, who looks nervous too. Crossing her arms, Lillia says, “Let’s just talk out here.”

Laughing, I say, “I’ve been sailing ever since I was old enough to turn the steering wheel on my own, for God’s sakes! I feel safer driving this thing than a car.”

“I said I’m not getting on that thing,” Lillia snaps. “Either we talk out here, or I leave.”

Under my breath, I mutter, “Diva,” unhook my floodlight, and then join them on the dock.

The three of us sit in a semicircle.

It hits me right then that I’ve already won. Because Rennie’s best friend is sitting here right now, pledging to help me take her down. And Alex is going to get his, too. I could give two shits about Reeve, but it’ll be nice to see him get what’s coming to him. It’s like a freaking three-for-one deal.

I stretch my legs out in front of me. “We’ve got to set some ground rules. First off, I think each of us has to participate in all three acts of revenge. That way, no one can back out or blame someone else.”

“Obviously,” Lillia says.

I shoot her a look, but keep going. “Secondly, we can’t be seen talking to each other in public. Ever. Not that we would . . .”

Mary nods. “Yeah. I guess that makes sense.”

I continue, “In fact, I even think texting each other is too risky. Lillia, what if Rennie picked up your phone and saw my number?”

Lillia looks down at her lap. “Not that Rennie’s like, snooping around on my phone, but yeah, I guess you have a point. We’re going to have to be careful.”

“We have to be more than careful,” I say. “No one can ever know what we’re up to. What we do together lives and dies with us.” Then I clear my throat, because this is the most important part. “And if we’re really going to do this, no one can bail halfway through. If you’re in, you need to be in until the very end. Until we all get what we want. If not, well . . . consider yourself fair game. It’ll be open season, and we’ll have a hell of a lot of ammo to use against you. If you can’t swear to that, we might as well just pretend like tonight never happened.”

Mary nods first, then Lillia. I smile, because, hot damn, we’re really doing this.

“All right then,” I say. “I think that’s it. Now, we just have to figure out what we’re going to do to Rennie, Alex, and Reeve.”

“Alex first,” Lillia corrects.

We look at one another. No one’s saying anything.

“So what are we going to do to him?” Lillia asks.

“Don’t expect me to do the heavy lifting,” I snarl. “I just came up with the rules!”

Lillia purses her lips. “Are you serious? I thought you’d be all over this. I figured you’d already have, like, a notebook with everybody you hate and lists of things you’ll do to get back at them.” She actually sounds disappointed, which gives me a weird sense of pride.

Off the top of my head, I start riffing. “Okay, well, Alex is obsessed with his car. We could spray paint it, mess with the engine—”

“Not big enough,” Lillia interrupts.

Mary asks, “Does he have a pet or something? We could kidnap it . . . and kill it!” Lillia and I exchange a horrified look as Mary giggles. “I’m just kidding about that last part. I love animals!”

I keep going. “We could hack into the school computer and mess with his grades. Make it so the only college that will take him is Jar Island CC. His dad will kill him if he doesn’t get into an Ivy.”

Lillia sighs and says, “I don’t know how to hack into anything, and I doubt you do, either, Kat. Do you, Mary?”

Mary shakes her head.

“I think I have a better idea.” I start to bristle, but then Lillia goes on. “I want to make it so no Jar Island girl will ever hook up with Alex Lind again. So . . . how do we make that happen?” There’s something about the way Lillia says it. Leaning forward in the dark, her eyes are wide open and calm now. She means business.

“Hell yeah!” I clap my hands. I can’t help myself.

Burn for Burn

Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian