Free To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han

into the sink and make a run for it, out the back door, down the porch steps, across the backyard to the Pearces’ yard. I scramble up the wooden ladder and into Carolyn Pearce’s old tree house. I haven’t been in this tree house since middle school. We used to hang out up here sometimes, at night—Chris and Genevieve and Allie and me, the boys a couple of times.
    I peek through the wooden slats, crouched in a ball, waiting until I see Josh walk back to his house. When I’m sure he’s inside, I climb down the ladder and run back to mine. I sure have been doing a lot of running today. I’m exhausted, now that I think of it.

19
    I WAKE UP THE NEXT morning renewed. I am a girl with a plan. I’m just going to have to avoid Josh forever. It’s as simple as that. And if not forever, then at least until this dies down and he forgets about my letter. There’s still the tiny chance he never even got it. Perhaps whoever mailed Peter’s only sent the one! You never know.
    My mom always said optimism was my best trait. Both Chris and Margot have said it’s annoying, but to that I say looking on the bright side of life never killed anybody.
    When I get downstairs, Daddy and Kitty are already at the table eating toast. I make myself a bowl of cereal and sit down with them.
    “I’m going to stop by Goodwill on my way to work,” my dad says, crunching on his toast from behind his newspaper. “I’m sure the hatbox will turn up there.”
    “Your hatbox is missing?” Kitty asks me. “The one Mommy gave you?”
    I nod and shovel cereal into my mouth. I have to leave soon or else I’ll risk running into Josh on my way out.
    “What was in the box, anyway?” Kitty asks.
    “That’s private,” I say. “All you need to know is the contents are precious to me.”
    “Will you be mad at Daddy if you never get the hatboxback?” Kitty answers her own question before I can. “I doubt it. You never stay mad for long.”
    This is true. I never can stay mad for long.
    Peering over his newspaper, he asks Kitty, “What in the world was in that hatbox?”
    Kitty shrugs. Her mouth full of toast, she says, “Probably more French berets?”
    “No, not more berets.” I give them both a mean look. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I don’t want to be late for school.”
    “Aren’t you leaving a little early?”
    “I’m taking the bus today,” I say. And probably every day until Margot’s car is fixed, but they don’t need to know that.

20
    THE WAY IT HAPPENS IS a strange sort of serendipity. A slow-motion train wreck. For something to go this colossally wrong, everything must intersect and collide at the exact right, or in this case, wrong, moment.
    If the bus driver hadn’t had trouble backing out of the cul-de-sac, taking four extra minutes to get to school, I never would have run into Josh.
    If Josh’s car had started up and he hadn’t had to get a jump from his dad, he wouldn’t have been walking by my locker.
    And if Peter hadn’t had to meet Ms. Wooten in the guidance office, he would not have been walking down the hallway ten seconds later. And maybe this whole thing would not have happened. But it did.
    * * *
    I’m at my locker; the door is jammed, and I’m trying to yank it open. I finally get the door loose and there’s Josh, standing right there.
    “Lara Jean . . .” He has this shell-shocked, confused expression on his face. “I’ve been trying to talk to you since last night. I came by, and nobody could find you. . . .” He holds out my letter. “I don’t understand. What is this?”
    “I don’t know . . . ,” I hear myself say. My voice feelsfar away. It’s like I’m floating above myself, watching it all unfold.
    “I mean, it’s from you, right?”
    “Oh, wow.” I take a breath and accept the letter. I fight the urge to tear it up. “Where did you even get this?”
    “It got sent to me in the mail.” Josh jams his hands into his pockets. “When did you write this?”
    “Like, a long