1. Margot and Josh will be together forever
The first time Lara Jean thinks about sex, like truly thinks about it, she's thirteen, it's the summer before her freshman year, and she's watching Josh and Margot watch a French film.
They're in the den. The couple, that is. L.J. is all but spying from behind the semi-closed door, peaking at both the movie and Josh's hands pretty much simultaneously. Not that Josh's hands are on Margot or anything; they couldn't be farther away from her, actually. He's sitting at one end of the couch, while she sits at the other, as they watch the film – both of their faces pointed straight at the TV so incredibly intensely, Lara Jean knows it's so they don't accidentally look at one another.
Lara Jean, on the other hand, cannot stop looking at them – looking at Margot's rigid back and heavy breathing and at Josh's arms, one thrown up and over as if they should be around a shoulder while the other is on the armrest, hand closed in a tight fist. L.J. would almost think they're sitting so far apart to appease a father that's not even home yet, but Lara Jean's pretty sure that if Dad walked in right now, the first thing he would see is the television screen – the one currently showing a naked woman pose for a man.
An wave of embarrassment washes over Lara Jean as the man touches her, and it makes her sprint upstairs back to her room. She shuts the door behind her with a slam that was probably too loud and goes to bed, completely perplexed and bewildered and confused.
Why is her sister watching that, and better question, how is she watching that with Josh? Isn't that too much for them? They're kids…aren't they?
There's a knock at her door, but before she can say anything, Margot walks in. "Hey, you okay?" she asks, and L.J. stares at her older sister. Margot's cheeks aren't pink like Lara Jean's are, and if she didn't know better, she would think nothing weird was happening at all.
"Yep." L.J. says quickly, grabbing a plush toy and holding it in front of her body. She hugs it to her chest and scoots up to her pillows. Margot sighs and follows her into her bed. "Isn't Josh over? You should go back to him."
Margot gives her a critical look and doesn't say anything in a long pregnant pause. "You're okay with Josh and me dating, right?" she finally says, frowning a little.
"Of course!" Lara Jean's voice is too high. "Of course." She repeats with a smile. "You two are super cute."
Margot tilts her head but accepts her sisters answer. "Good, because I really like him." Margot confesses in a whisper, and Lara Jean's heart sinks. "He's really… respectful. I love that about him."
Lara Jean shifts. "You love him?"
Margot blinks and also shifts. "Um…" She shrugs. "I don't know. We just started dating. But…" she trails off, before getting off the bed. "He's all I see, you know? It's like whenever I walk down the hall, my eyes go straight to him. Does that makes sense?"
L.J. smiles and puts her head on her knees, wrapping her arms around her legs. Her plushie gets squashed in between her body. "Totally." She whispers with a sigh, and Margot kisses her forehead.
"Careful. You're suffocating your bear. Oh wait. It's a dog." Margot teases her, pulling the plush away from L.J. "And who's this? I've never seen him before." She shakes the dog, making his ears dance a little.
Lara Jean takes a better look at the plushie. Honestly, she had only grabbed the toy before to hide the fact that her breasts were definitely a bit bumpy. Immediately, her face turns into a grimace. Of course, she grabbed that stuffed animal to cover herself. "Oh, that's just… a dog." She says lamely, and Margot gives her another one of her looks so she sighs. "His name is Peter Barker."
Margot's eyebrows go up. "Like… Spider-Man?"
L.J. sighs again, deeply and dramatically. She grabs the stuffed dog and throws it across the room. "I didn't name it!" She excuses herself before realizing her mistake.
Margot is quick. "Oh, then who did?" L.J. groans, throwing her head back onto her pillow and then her arms over her face. "Come on, tell me."
"No one important. Just Peter Kavinsky." Lara Jean admits in a mutter, and Margot groans with an amused, "Oh, no. Him again?" attached.
"Him who?"
Lara Jean sits up immediately and brings her knees up to her chest again before looking at the doorway. Josh (and his hands) is leaning against the wall, looking confused.
Margot snorts. "There's this boy in L.J.'s class that used to have this massive crush on her back when – how old were you? Fourth grade? – and he was super obvious about it. He stole his mother's perfume and gave it to L.J. as a present, which could have been cute, but then he also stole his mother's engagement ring and put it in a cupcake. Lara Jean almost choked."
Lara Jean flushes but says nothing. Josh looks shocked, which makes her feel even worse. "Wait. He proposed to Lara Jean, and he didn't bother to tell her not to eat the cupcake? What a guy." Josh says, judgment filtering into his voice. L.J. frowns. "Who was it, anyway? Do I know him?"
"Probably not." Lara Jean says. "He's in my grade, and he's not that crazy popular or anything. We were really good friends when we were really young." She explains further before grimacing, adding in a purposely lowered voice, "But then the crush started."
"It was sweet." Margot provided with a slight smile.
Lara Jean groaned loudly. "No!" she disagrees, crossing her arms. "He ruined middle school for me!"
"The crush is still going?" Josh asks with a little too much surprise.
L.J. tries to not show how hurt she is when she answers. "No." She tells him, rolling her eyes. "Ugh. I'm not telling the story right." She says, waving her hands as if she's wiping away what she already said. "Okay, so Peter K. and I were paired up together all the time when we were in first grade, so we became really good friends. We would have play dates, and our moms were really close, and it was a lot of fun, right? So that continues for like three years, except now I had another best friend, Gen, and the three of us would always hang out. So, then, one day Gen tells me she likes Peter, and I didn't know how to deal with it because I thought it would break our group up."
She takes a deep breath before continuing. "But Gen wasn't planning on doing anything. We were like nine, but then everyone started teasing Peter because it was quote unquote "obvious" he liked someone, and I thought that was Gen, but apparently it was me. After he was exposed, everything fell apart. He started, like, sitting next to me all the time… I mean, he was already sitting next to me before I knew he liked me, but it was different. He would exclusively talk just to me, and he would buy me candy all the time. And okay, it was sweet." L.J. admits with a grumble to her sister, who laughs.
Looking back at Josh, she finishes the story – ignoring the fact that he's leaning against her bedroom wall, looking like he could be a poster on it. "But Gen liked him, and every day Gen became meaner and meaner, so Peter stopped hanging out with her. And then it became me and him again, and then the perfume and then the cupcake – which by the way, if you present a girl a cupcake, it shouldn't be a shock that she tries to eat it – and then came John Ambrose McClaren's party in our fifth grade."
"What happened at John Ambrose McClaren's party?" Josh asks, looking amused.
L.J. flushes again, and Margot steps in, "He kissed her."
"It was spin the bottle!" Lara Jean explains quickly before deflating. "But it happened in front of Gen, and then… I don't know. Everything changed, again. Gen officially stopped talking to me. It didn't help that she got super pretty and every boy wanted her. Not that she stopped wanting Peter, though, and I guess our kiss meant nothing to him because he started dating her the following week. I haven't talked to either of them in years. Well, that's a lie – Gen is constantly making my life hell, but like, no real conversations. And Peter talked to me, like, once, but that doesn't count. It was after mom."
"Wow." Is all that Josh says. "Quite a drama."
Margot snickers, going over to the far corner of L.J.'s room. "What I don't understand is where did Peter Barker come from?"
"It's Parker. And what?"
Ignoring Josh, Margot picks up the thrown dog, looking at it critically. The stuffed animal is of a beagle, complete with large ears and a cute, pink button nose. Lara Jean settles forward, letting her cool hand rest against her burning cheek. "Um, the carnival."
"The carnival?" Margot repeats, coming back to her bed with raised eyebrows.
"Ugh!" Lara Jean groans. "I'm tired of talking about Peter. He's annoying."
"Oh, no you don't. This doesn't look like it's five years old. Peter Barker looks brand new."
Lara Jean doesn't answer, shifting into herself. Josh must notice because he suddenly comes forward and grabs Margot around her waist. "Why don't we watch some episode of The Office? Come on, L.J., you can join us if you want."
Margot leans into Josh's arms, and Lara Jean looks away. "No, you guys go. Although…" she trails off, clearing her throat. "I thought you guys were watching a movie." She asks nonchalantly, and Margot looks at her suspiciously. Josh, on the other hand, blushes and shrugs.
"It wasn't very good." He forces a smile at L.J. before stepping away from Margot, his long fingers slowly leaving her older sister's waist before coming down to her hands. Their fingers interlock, and the couple turn to each other, smiling shyly at one another. Lara Jean watches as her sister's cheeks turn pink and then she watches as her sister goes on her toes to kiss Josh on the cheek and then she watches as Josh gives her a large grin, and then she stops watching altogether. Closing her eyes, Lara Jean goes backwards onto her bed again and her arm brushes against something fuzzy.
Without opening her eyes, she grabs Peter Barker and hugs him to her chest. "I think I'm going to read." She tells the couple, snapping her eyes open. They look at her and nod, distracted, and then with laced fingers, they walk out of her room discussing potential episodes to watch. Lara Jean stays in bed for a moment before rushing to the doorway, spying on them as they go down the stairs.
Margot is looking elegant and beautiful. Happy. Any previous embarrassment the couple shared is forgotten, and they are back to joking, back to hand holding and smiles, back to them. At the foot of the stairs, Josh pauses them and leans down to kiss Margot straight on the mouth, intertwining his fingers into her long black hair. Margot stands on her toes, reaching up to kiss him back, and yeah, Lara Jean knows she's evil.
Tears blind her and she closes the door to her room softly so the couple doesn't hear. She goes to her desk, Peter Barker firmly pressed against her racing heart, and she grabs the stationary her mother brought her when Lara Jean was ten. Making a pit stop to her closet, she grabs a teal hat box, also given to her by her late mother, and sprints back to her bed.
She knows what she has to do.
Josh and Margot aren't a fling. They are a bonafide couple. Although Lara Jean doesn't go to school with them yet, she knows they sit together every day at lunch, where Margot will give Josh the chips she always complains he steals from her. She knows they have twelve different songs because they think every song fits them. She knows they do jigsaw puzzles when they're bored. She knows Margot hates superhero movies but will read comics with Josh. She knows Josh has tried to be more mature for Margot, probably the reason they were even watching a racy French film in the first place. She knows them, and she knows they will be together forever.
So with a sigh, and a stuffed dog in her lap, she does what she has done only once before – when she was in fifth grade and her secret crush kissed her during spin the bottle – and writes:
Dear Josh.
a. (Addendum: as soon as they get back together)
Over the years, a couple more letters get written: one to John Ambrose McClaren, after a rousing model UN meet, one to a kid named Kenny, who saved a boy from drowning at summer camp, and one to Lucas James, who will forever have better style than her. Five in total. Lara Jean hides them in her teal hatbox, deep in her closet away from her older sister's prying eyes and her little sister's wandering hands, and for the most part, she doesn't think about them. Sometimes John Ambrose McClaren will pop in her mind and she'll wonder if he's still repping Brazil. Other times, Lucas will be walking down the hall talking to one of his girl friends, and she'll wonder if there's a space between the words. Kenny, sadly, she barely even remembers, always debating whether he had brown hair or sandy blonde.
And the other two? One basically has an open door policy in her house, and the other is the star lacrosse player every girl at school is in love with. She cannot help but be reminded by them everywhere she goes.
Josh and Margot are stronger than ever; he's constantly over watching Golden Girls with the three sisters, or helping Kitty with her homework, or being a taste tester for any baking invention Lara Jean has created. It's suffocating at times, if she's being honest, to the point where she barely wants to go home, and there's been more than one time where she's opted to go to the library after school instead of catching a ride home with Margot and Josh. There's only so many time Lara Jean can watch Josh bring his hand, palm facing up, onto the central console, awaiting Margot's.
And as for Peter Kavinsky – if she has to hear one more girl commiserate over Peter and Gen's five year relationship, she will scream. Where Peter may have once been teased for having a crush on "the Asian girl", he's now revered as the boy who took Genevieve's virginity. Where Peter was once the shortest boy in their class, literally all during middle school and at least the first half of the summer before high school, he's now well over six feet. Where Peter was once always picked last when it came to sports, he's now the best lacrosse goalie their school has seen in a decade – what, with his broad shoulders, strong arms, and hard thighs. There used to be a time when Peter – sorry, Kavinsky as he now likes to be called – could not be mentioned without Lara Jean, either because they were inseparable or later when it was a joke, but now, whenever Lara Jean is brought up in relation to Kavinsky is to marvel how he, the most covert and popular jock this side of America, could have ever in his life liked her.
It's infuriating.
He's not even that great! He's arrogant and sarcastic, and he flirts with every girl at school, even though Gen will have them murdered later. Not that he flirts with Lara Jean, of course. He hasn't said a full sentence to her since her mother's funeral, but still. L.J. can just tell he's the worst – even if it's from several steps away.
(It's a shame, really – one boy is too close, the other is too far.)
"Hey. What are you thinking about?"
Lara Jean jumps a foot in the air, and Josh laughs at her reaction. They're in practically the same places they were in the night Lara Jean caught Margot and Josh watching La Belle Noiseuse: her on her bed, a stuffed dog perched on her night table, and he, leaning against her doorframe, always knowing never to fully enter her room. "You looked so deep in thought. I didn't mean to scare you." He says with a kind smile.
She gives him an amused but reproaching look. "Don't sneak up on me." She tells him, getting off her bed and grabbing a robe to put over her sleep shorts. The material is fluffy and comfortable, and she tells herself she put it on for those reasons and not because she felt embarrassed he could see her skin. "Where's Margot?" L.J. asks.
"She kicked me out. You know how your sister gets during exam season." Josh says, rolling his eyes. "I was distracting her."
"Yeah, sounds about right." Lara Jean snorts, and she goes to leave her bedroom. The pair walk downstairs, L.J. leading the way, and go to the kitchen. "I was thinking about doing a cake. Should it be chocolate or red velvet? I have the cocoa powder for either." She asks as she sets the ingredients on the counter.
"Hmm." Josh pops his lips. "Red velvet. You know it's my favorite." He teases her and she shrugs coyly. They're quiet as Lara Jean starts mixing, and when she looks up, he's watching her. She blinks back in surprise; she's usually the one staring. "Sorry. You just look so focused and…you know, beautiful." Josh tells her in a whisper, laughing awkwardly at the end. Lara Jean stumbles, dropping her steel measuring cup filled with flour to the ground. The sound of the metal cup bangs against cabinets loudly on its way down.
"Oh. Thank you?" she says, heart suddenly racing, both at his words and the sound. Josh looks down at the mess she made, and L.J. dazedly does the same, the white powder covering her wooden floors like snow. "I should clean that up." She says monotonously, before bending down and wiping the flour up with her robe. She gets some on her hands, but doesn't realize and puts her hair behind her ear. When she stands back up, Josh laughs again, looking at her like he always looks at Margot.
"You're a mess." He teases her, and she grabs the bag of flour instead of answering. She inward tells her heart to calm down, that she needs to replace the flour she dropped on the flour into her batter, but then Josh is saying, "Hold on." So she does, one hand holding her wooden spoon and the other the bag of flour. Josh comes around the counter until he's in front of her. "You have flour everywhere, L.J." He tells her as he brings his hands to her face. His fingers wipe away the powder she cannot see, and she stumbles backwards.
"Oh, I'll go clean up then."
"I got it." He whispers, and she freezes. His eyes look dark as they look at her, and she feels like she's going to explode. Her first instinct is call for her sister, but her entire being feels frozen.
Josh traces his fingers on her face and then down to her chin, where she doesn't even know how flour could have gone, and then to her lips, where she definitely knows flour didn't fall. He's going to kiss her, she realizes, even though he hasn't leaned in or anything. Not yet, at least. But he's looking at her the same way he always looks before he gives Margot a kiss. He's looking at her the same way Peter did back five years ago. She stands stock still, spoon in one hand, bag in the other, Margot's name threatening to be screamed out, as he leans forward.
His hands wind down to her waist as he pulls her tense body towards him, and he gives her another dark eyed look before brushing his lips against hers.
If Lara Jean is being honest, she knows this kiss hasn't come out of nowhere. Even though she wrote a letter to try to subdue her feelings, they never truly went away. There had been so many instances throughout the last two years where it seem like Josh might have maybe liked her back – which never made sense, because he loves Margot. "No!" She says loudly against his lips, and he jerks back, shocked. His face immediately pales and he looks vaguely sick.
"I heard something fall."
Lara Jean and Josh both jump and look to their left, where Margot is standing at the kitchen's doorway. Her eyes are zeroed in on Josh, hands down on either side, clenched in fists. She looks every bit as elegant as she usually does – long black hair pulled up into a tight ponytail, dress wrinkle-free – but where her face is usually so soft when looking at Josh, it's now stony and slowly reddening.
"Margot." Lara Jean says, her voice betraying her confidence. Margot slowly turns to look at her, eyes furious and accusing, and Lara Jean drops the bag of flour carelessly onto the floor. A puff of smoke make both Josh and her take a step back from each other, and she throws her wooden spoon onto the counter. "This isn't…I didn't…"
"Stop." Margot demands, looking angrier than Lara Jean has ever seen her. She turns back to Josh. "Get out. We are done in every way possible."
Josh blinks at her, still looking shocked. "Margot, wait. I can explain."
"No, no, no." Lara Jean mutters under her breath, taking a step backwards. What the hell was happening? She was baking a cake and suddenly, her sister is breaking up with the boy next door. Because of her. She turns away from the couple, who are now arguing loudly, and she puts a finger to her lips. They're still tingling from Josh's kiss, but not in the way they did after Peter kissed her half a decade ago. No, now they tingle with disgust. How could she be so selfish? How could Josh? Her sister will never forgive her. She will never forgive herself.
Without a second glance back to the now screaming Margot and the begging Josh – "She's my little sister, Josh! What did you think was going to happen?" "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't know what happened. I lost control!" - Lara Jean runs out the back door, grabbing Margot's car keys before she does. And even though she only has her permit and her dad and the law has told her she's not allowed to drive by herself, she jumps into Margot's car. The tears had started sometime after she dashed out the door and they're in full force now – blinding her as she tries to remember how to drive a car. She turns the ignition and peels out the driveway, pressing down on the gas the entire time.
She knows she should have stayed, explain things, but she didn't know how to explain things without having to admit her feelings.
But also – she didn't kiss him. He kissed her, and Lara Jean doesn't know if that's a distinction worth noting in her sister's eyes. She doesn't even know if there's a distinction in her own eyes. All she knows is that Josh apparently lost his mind, because there's no other reason as to why he would kiss her.
Her hands are shaking as she turns onto a street – Glover, a street she remembers from childhood – and she screams when the back of her car slides too far to the right. She almost loses control of her sister's car, and she tries hard to steady it but ends up hitting the mirror off a parked minivan. She immediately stops the car, breathing so hard, she's practically hyperventilating. She grips the steering wheel tightly. "Oh my, God. Oh my, God." She freaks out, and she screams again when someone taps on her window.
Whipping her head towards the noise, she sees a boy with what could possibly be the most beautiful eyes she's ever seen. He's so tall, he has to lean down to talk to her – and talking to her is exactly what he's doing, so she quickly lowers the window. "Covey, are you okay? What is going on?" he asks, his voice concerned and bewildered.
Of course, Lara Jean thinks. Of all the people she could have ran into while having a breakdown in the middle of a road after a minor accident while illegally driving, it had to be him.
But then, she shouldn't have been that shocked. Peter Kavinsky has always lived on Glover Street.
It's been a long time since I've written something on here. Who knew that a movie/book series with practically no fics would be what would bring me back?