Page 1 of A Very Snowed In New Year
ONE
Piper
ONLY ONE DREAD
Three Decembers Ago
Big yikes.
This is the opposite of what usually happens in the boring days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve that my uncle Declan calls “The Taint of the Year.” This is objectively not awesome. But it’s also kind of exciting in a really awkward, terrible way! In the character arc of the story of my life as a devoted chronicler of romance and feelings, this is going to be one of those defining moments. This is one of those uniquely awful situations that will reveal what I, Piper Puckett, am made of.
As soon as I decide what to do.
Being a hopeless romantic is so much more than just a label or a full-time job. Yes, I am the Queen CEO Lady Boss of being in love with love. Yes, I have had the song “Dreams” by TheCranberries in my head for every waking moment since I first watchedYou’ve Got Mailwith my mom at the age of six. Yes, I’ve shipped more people than the Staten Island Ferry.
But it’s more than that. It’s more than having a signature fragrance that leaves an enticing scent trail. It’s more than keeping mints and lip balm in every bag and pocket so I always have a kissable mouth. It’s more than an attitude or a character trait or a way of life, even. It’s a soul promise I have made to Love and Romance itself.
Also, I prefer to call myself a hopefulromantic. Because being a romantic is a good thing. An admirable thing. My life is fuller because I have so much hope for romance. Even though I have not yet experienced True Love myself, I have witnessed it all around me and I have created it, over and over again, on the page. And although I have not had the physical, real-life experience of beingknownby another person in the biblical sense, I do not self-identify as a virgin. I consider myself a nineteen-year-old woman who has not been sexually active with another personyet.
At all.
Aside from a moderate amount of kissing and consensual above-the-waist, over-the-bra stuff. And not counting the time I accidentally put my hand on Elijah Finerman’s crotch when I lost my balance at a party. Even though the thing in his jeans felt like actual wood and he was allBuy a guy a beer first, will ya?And he still tries to get me to go out with him every now and then to this day, but the wood-in-the-pants thing kind of scared me, so it’s always ahardno-thank-you.
I blame the delayed onset of my sexual prowess on all of the men in my entire extended family who are hell-bent on keeping me a virgin forever.
And it may have something to do with the fact that I still want my first time to be magical and beautiful and perfect and withsomeone really special who genuinely cares about me. Even if that someone isn’t Shawn Mendes or either of the Efron brothers or even the TA for my Digital Media Studies class who looks like the duke inBridgerton. That magical, beautiful, perfect situation with the right person has not presented itselfyet. But it will.
In the meantime, I do enjoy looking at and thinking about hot guys and writing about them, and I am a very creative writer.
Even in my Extra Super Secret Diary.
Which is currently in the hands of the one person who I really, truly never ever wanted to read what’s in it.
My dad.
My poor, poor dad.
Of all the men who don’t want me to have sex, it may not surprise anyone that he does not want me to have sex the most. He is the hell-bent-iest on preserving my virginity. And that journal he’s waving around is the vessel wherein I have stored all the most inspired, creative, private, some might say embarrassing thoughts I have had about boys and Doing the Big It for years.
I am a writer. I was born to share my writing with other people. Butthatwriting inthatdiary is not meant to be read by anyone other than me. It isn’t even meant to be read by me, really. It’s the writing that just has to get out of my head so I can go about my day.
I write a lot. I have always written for school, and I sometimes still share my stories under the handle PiperThanFiction on fanfiction websites. I write for fun, I write as exercise, I write and rewrite romantic-comedy screenplays that should one day become movies. I write as a ritual. I journal in my Regular Diary to enhance my creativity and self-awareness, knowing full well that while I lived at home, my mom was reading it to make sure I wasn’t doing drugs or thinkingabout joining a cult. Or more likely she read it because she was bored. I have been writing in my Super Secret Diary, which is a collection of Microsoft Word documents I have kept in a locked folder on my laptop, since I was thirteen. And sometimes I write feverishly, using a special prefilled fountain pen, in myExtraSuper Secret Diary, which is a nondescript hardcover notebook. Like Anaïs Nin did, because I am a sensual woman and writing by hand is a sensual experience.
But I sure as shit never wanted my dad to read those handwritten words.
Whyis he holding my Extra Super Secret Diary and pacing around the living room, panicking like it’s the end of the world instead of the end of December, you might ask?
Because I couldn’t exactly leave my diaries in my UCLA dorm room over winter break, so I brought them with me. All of them. I traveled with one piece of checked baggage that’s filled with every journal I’ve ever written in and one carry-on bag for clothes. My mom got me new luggage for Christmas, and I was in the middle of transferring things out of my old bags in my room when I got a text from my friend to meet up at a restaurant before she has to leave for the airport. I guess I left the notebook out and by the time I realized it, had the driver circle back, and ran up to the fifth floor, my very tipsy mom had already decided to “tidy up” my room while I was out. Now I’m hiding in the darkened foyer watching my parents’ reflections in the living room window, my dad thinks I’m a nymphomaniac, and he wants to lock me up for the rest of his life.
“To be clear, I am talking about locking her up untilafterI die!” he exclaims. “I am talking about the rest of my sweet girlPiper’sentire life, not just mine.”
“Why am I so turned on by how distraught you are right now?” my mother says, and I can just hear her eyelids getting all hooded.
Unbelievable.
“Because you’ve had two glasses of chardonnay and I’m incredibly handsome when I’m being logical and rational about protecting our daughter from herself and all of peniskind. Why in the blue blazes did you show me this notebook, woman?!” My dad always gets more Southern when he’s stressed out. It’s cute.
“I didn’tshowit to you—I left it on the table when I went to make popcorn! Will you stop pacing?! Why are you so stressed out about this?”
