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→“Kitty, I was only teasing,” I say lamely. I wasn’t going to say the name of the boy. I would never ever have said it.

→Kitty kicks me, and in doing so she accidentally rips one of her dog pictures. She lets out a cry and drops to her knees and examines it. Her face is red with the effort of not crying. I feel like such a jerk. I sit up and try to give her an I’m sorry hug, but she twists away from me and kicks at my legs, so hard I yelp. I pick the picture up and try to tape it back, but before I can, Kitty snatches it out of my hands and gives it to Josh. “Josh, fix it,” she says. “Lara Jean ruined it.”

→“Shut up, Lara Jean, shut up!”

→I prop myself up on my elbows, and Kitty tries to put her hand over my mouth. Giggling, I say, “It’s after a boy she likes.”

→Then Josh tugs on my ponytail and says, “Aw, come on, Lara Jean! Don’t leave us in suspense.”

→I look at Kitty and she is giving me evil glowy red eyes. “Never mind,” I say, feeling nervous all of a sudden. Kitty might be the baby of the family, but she is not someone to trifle with.

→I have Josh’s full attention now. “Come on, tell us,” Josh begs.

→“Be quiet, Lara Jean!” she screeches.

→Kitty hesitates, and I know why. I roll over and tickle Kitty’s bare foot. “I know what you’ll name him,” I say in a singsong voice.

→“What’ll you name him?”

→Again her answer is prompt. “Boy.”

→“Boy or girl?”

→Kitty answers back lightning fast. “An Akita.”

→“What kind do you want most of all?” Josh asks her.

→After, the three of us are relaxing in the TV room. It’s Sunday night, but there’s not that Sunday night feeling in the air, because tomorrow is Labor Day and we have one last day before school starts. Kitty’s working on her dog collage, quelle surprise.

→Since Daddy cooked, us kids have kitchen duty. He uses every pot in the kitchen when he makes lasagna, so it’s the worst cleanup, but worth it.

→ON SUNDAY, DADDY MAKES LASAGNA. He does that thing where he puts black-bean salsa in it to jazz it up, and it sounds gross but it’s actually good and you don’t notice the beans. Josh comes over too, and he has three helpings, which Daddy loves. When Margot’s name comes up over dinner, I look over at Josh and see how stiff he gets, and I feel sorry for him. Kitty must notice too, because she changes the subject over to dessert, which is a batch of peanut-butter brownies I baked earlier in the afternoon.

→11

→She still has that freshman-year reputation though. She acts like she doesn’t care, but I know she does, at least a little.

→Chris was pretty wild our freshman year. She went to every party, got drunk, hooked up with older boys. That year a junior guy from the lacrosse team told everyone that Chris had sex with him in the boys’ locker room, and it wasn’t even true. Genevieve made Peter threaten to kick his ass if he didn’t tell everybody the truth. I thought it was a really nice thing Genevieve did for Chris, but Chris insisted that Gen had only done it so people wouldn’t think she was related to a slut. After that Chris stopped hanging out and pretty much did her own thing, with people from another school.