P.S. I Still Love You

“Don’t talk like it’s doomed already.”

“I don’t mean to. The first isn’t necessarily the last, but it will always be the first, and that’s special. Firsts are special.”

“You’re not first,” Peter says. “But you’re the most special to me, because you’re the girl I love, Lara Jean.”

Love. He said “love.” I feel dizzy. I am a girl who is loved, by a boy, and not just her sisters and father and dog. A boy with beautiful eyebrows and a sleight of hand. “I’ve been going crazy without you.” He scrubs the back of his head. “Can’t we just—”

“You’re saying I drive you crazy too?” I interrupt.

He groans. “I’m saying you drive me more crazy than any girl I’ve ever met.”

I crawl toward him, and I reach out and trace my finger along his eyebrow that feels like silk. I say, “In the contract we said we wouldn’t break each other’s hearts. What if we do it again?”

Fiercely he says, “What if we do? If we’re so guarded, it’s not going to be anything. Let’s do it fucking for real, Lara Jean. Let’s go all in. No more contract. No more safety net. You can break my heart. Do whatever you want with it.”

I put my hand to his chest, over his heart. I can feel it beating. I let my hand fall away. His heart is mine, just mine. I believe it now. Mine to protect and care for, mine to break.

So much of love is chance. There’s something scary and wonderful about that. If Kitty had never sent those letters, if I hadn’t gone to the hot tub that night, it might’ve been him and Gen. But she did send those letters, and I did go out there. It could have happened lots of ways. But this is the way it happened. This is the path we took. This is our story.

I know now that I don’t want to love or be loved in half measures. I want it all, and to have it all, you have to risk it all.

So I take Peter’s hand; I put it on my heart. I tell him, “You have to take good care of this, because it’s yours.”

He looks at me in such a way that I know for sure—he’s never looked at another girl quite like this.

And then I’m in his arms, and we’re hugging and kissing, and we’re both shaking, because we both know—this is the night we become real.

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

—MARGERY WILLIAMS

Acknowledgments

With most heartfelt thanks to my editor Zareen Jaffery, who I could not have written this book without. Thanks also to Justin Chanda, my publisher and dear friend, and A

All my love and admiration to my incredible agent, Emily van Beek, Molly Jaffa, and the whole Folio team—you are so very appreciated. Thank you also to Elena Yip, my part-time gal Friday.

To Siobhan Vivian, my partner in writing, in crime, and all things. I couldn’t do it without you. Adele Griffin, one of my most favorite people in all the world—you always find the pulse of every story. Morgan Matson, here’s to that night in London!

And finally, to my readers—all of my love, always.

Je

About the Author

Photograph © Adam Krause

JENNY HAN is the New York Times bestselling author of The Summer I Turned Pretty series; Shug; the Burn for Burn trilogy, cowritten with Siobhan Vivian; and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and P.S. I Still Love You. She is also the author of the chapter book Clara Lee and The Apple Pie Dream. A former children’s bookseller, she earned her MFA in creative writing at the New School. Visit her at DearJe

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