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→Ouch. “I was going to take Daddy’s when he comes back from Home Depot.” I back away from her, far enough away that she can’t lash out at me with a kick or a hit. “There’s no need to be nasty, Katherine.”

→KITTY’S STILL MAD AT ME. In the wake of the Josh revelation, I’d forgotten all about Kitty. She ignores me all morning, and when I ask if she wants me to take her to the store for school supplies, she snaps, “With what car? You wrecked Margot’s.”

→14

→When I’m done, I put the letter in my diary instead of in my hat box. I have a feeling I’m not done-done yet, that there’s still more I need to say, I just haven’t thought of it yet.

→I still love you and that’s a really huge problem for me and it’s also a really huge surprise. I swear I didn’t know. All this time, I thought I was over it. How could I not be, when it’s Margot you love? It’s always been Margot . . .

→P.S. I still love you.

→I go to my room and I find my special writing pen, the one with the really smooth inky-black ink. I take out my heavy writing paper, and I begin to write.

→I suppose there’s only one thing I can do. I’ll write him another letter. A postscript with as many pages as it takes to X away whatever feelings I have left for him. I’ll put this whole thing to rest, once and for all.

→Thinking these kinds of thoughts, feeling these kinds of feelings, it’s more than disloyal. I know that. It’s downright traitorous. It makes my soul feel dirty. Margot’s been gone less than a week and look at me, how fast I cave. How fast I covet. I’m a betrayer of the worst kind, because I’m betraying my own sister, and there’s no greater betrayal than that. But what now? What am I supposed to do with all these feelings?

→But now, sitting here alone in my living room, with my sister four thousand miles away and Josh next door, all I can think is, Josh Sanderson, I liked you first. By all rights, you were mine. And if it had been me, I’d have packed you in my suitcase and taken you with me, or, you know what, I would have stayed. I would have never left you. Not in a million years, not for anything.

→When I wrote my letter, when I said my good-byes, I meant it, I swear I did. It wasn’t even that hard, not really. Not when I thought about how much Margot liked him, how much she cared. How could I begrudge Margot a first love? Margot, who’d sacrificed so much for all of us. She always, always put Kitty and me before herself. Letting go of Josh was my way of putting Margot first.

→I THOUGHT I WAS OVER him.

→13

→I didn’t know it then, how important this boy would become to me and to the people I love the most. But even if I had known, what could I have done differently? It was never going to be me and him. Even though.

→So he did.

→“You should play with us, Josh,” Kitty commanded.

→“Josh.”

→Kitty asked him, “What’s your name?”

→“Hi,” he said. His hair was shaggy, and he kept shaking it out of his eyes. He was wearing a red T-shirt with a hole in the shoulder.

→Josh sat up on the fence, not saying anything, and Margot was really stiff and embarrassed; her cheeks were red, but she kept her hat on. Kitty was the one to call out to him. “Hello, boy,” she said.