Author's Note: Welcome to the results of finally watching "The Kissing Booth," six months after everyone else, and losing my everloving mind. I went looking for fanfic and couldn't find quite what I was looking for - a slightly older Elle and Noah, still trying to figure it out - and so I just started writing it myself.
I've adopted the timeline provided in the movie's initial montage, which puts Joni Evans's death in 2013 and the start of Elle's junior year in 2014 - this story opens in fall 2020. Wherever the movie and book diverge on plot or characterization, this story is pretty squarely in the movie's universe.
October 24th. Mom's birthday - she would have been 52 this year. I ask the florist for irises, marigolds, peach roses, crimson tulips. It's a crazy combination and the florist asks if I'm sure. I am - Mom loved color. I want a riot of color. I ask for the glittery ribbon and the florist side eyes me again. Go ahead, dude. Say something. I am itching for a fight, hoping he'll tell me how tacky my bouquet is so I can play the Dead Mom card. But I guess he's read the thing about the customer always being right, because he hands me my bouquet with a smile.
The sun is out in all its Southern California glory as I drive to the cemetery, and I realize that at some point this drive became comforting rather than painful. I park and walk the familiar path to Mom's grave. It's just me, this year. Brad has an away game and Dad went with him.
When I find Mom, a gorgeous bouquet of gerbera daisies in every color already leans against her headstone. I'm not surprised - Mrs. Flynn often visits on Mom's birthday too - but this is beyond June's usual elegant lilies or roses. A card is tucked into the flowers and its achingly familiar handwriting makes my heart race. I whirl around and startle like I've seen a ghost, but it's a living, breathing Noah I've spotted. He's about thirty yards away, on a bench in the memorial garden. His head is down, buried in a book, but I'd know that profile anywhere. But maybe "ghost" had been the accurate term for what I'd seen. You see, it's… been a while. Two years since my dad almost died, I dropped out, Noah proposed, I freaked out, and everything went wrong.
Maybe there's backstory needed here. Just a little.