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I feel a lurow in my throat If only it wasn’t all a lie

“Don’t cry, Daddy,” Kitty orders, and Daddy nods and pulls her into his ar

“Can you do e forever?”

Autoive hs too

I really admire my little sister sometimes She knows exactly what she wants, and she’ll do whatever it takes to get it She’s sha to talk to Daddy and help her cause The two of us ear hi I’d bet money on it

49

THE NEXT NIGHT PETER AND I study at Starbucks for a few hours—well, I study, and he keeps getting up and talking to people fron up for the ski trip?”

“No I’m a terrible skier” Only cool people like Peter and his friends go on the ski trip I could try to twist Chris’s aroing on any school trip

“You don’t have to ski You can snowboard That’s what I’ive hi?”

“I’ll teach you Corabs my hand and says, “Please please please, Lara Jean? Come on, be a sport It’ll be fun, I promise”

He catches me by surprise with this The ski trip isn’t until winter break So he wants to keep this, us, up until then For some reason I feel relieved

“If you don’t want to snowboard,” he continues, “the lodge has a big stone fireplace and big comfy chairs You can sit and read for hours And they sell the best hot chocolate I’ll buy you one” He squeezes ht, I’ll go But the hot chocolate had better be as good as you say”

“I’ll buy you as les,” I say, and Peter snorts “What?”

“Nothing”

When we get to my house, I cli on the floor of his car, and Daddy and Kitty aren’t home They’re at Kitty’s school for parent-teacher conferences

I fu around in the dark for the spare keys we keep hidden under the wheelbarrow Then I remember that the spare keys are in the junk drawer, in the house, because I forgot to put theot locked out I have no keys, no phone, no way of getting into the house

Josh! Josh has a spare key He’s watered my dad’s plants for him a few times ent away on vacation

I find a rock in the driveway and I cross the lawn and stand underneath Josh’sI throw the rock at it and I lass, barely er rock This one hits

Josh opens theand leans his head out “Hey Did Kavinsky leave already?”

Surprised, I say, “Yeah I leftin his car Can you thron the spare keys?”

Josh sighs, like I’e “Hold on” Then he disappears

I stand there and wait for him to come back to the , but he doesn’t He co a hoodie and sweatpants It’s Margot’s favorite hoodie When they first got together, she used to wear it all the ti