Birthday Flowers | The Kissing Booth

1. A Ghost Appears (Prologue)

Welcome post-TKB2 readers! I adored the second movie, even if now some details of this story are alternate-universe...

~~~~

October 24th, 2020. 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's baseball team 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. I spot a card tucked into the flowers and its unexpected but achingly familiar handwriting makes my heart race. I whirl around, then startle like I've seen a ghost, but it's a living, breathing Noah I've spotted. He's about thirty yards away, sitting 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... since I've seen Noah. 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.

~~~~

Author's Note: I'm following the timeline provided in the first movie's initial montage, which puts Joni Evans's death in 2013 and the start of Elle's junior year in fall 2014 - this story opens in fall 2020. And we are squarely in the Netflix adaptation's universe, not the books'.

July 2020 update: This story was originally intended to be short, then it turned into a monster saga - literally 200 times longer than the fanfics I'd written before. Let me know what you think! And please vote if you like it, it's so motivating to know people are reading. 💜

August 2021 update: so I guess this story is now extremely alternate-universe and taking place in a 2020 where covid never happened...