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Dear Lara Jean,

I will give you your letter back on one condition. You have to make a solemn unbreakable vow that you will return it to me after
you’re done reading it. I need physical proof that a girl liked me in middle school, otherwise who would ever believe it?

And for what it’s worth, that peanut butter chocolate cake you baked was the best I ever ate. I never had another cake quite like
that one, with my name written in Reese’s Pieces. I still think about it sometimes. A guy doesn’t forget a cake like that.

I have one question for you. How many letters did you write? Just wondering how special I should feel.

John

Dear John,

I, Lara Jean, hereby make a solemn vow—nay, an unbreakable vow

—to return my letter to you, intact and unchanged. Now give me my

letter back!

Also you’re such a liar. You know very well that plenty of girls

liked you in middle school. At sleepovers, girls would be like, are

you Team Peter or Team John? Don’t pretend like you didn’t know

that, Johnny!

And to answer your question—there were five letters. Five

meaningful boys in my whole life history. Though, now that I’m

writing it down, five sounds like a lot, considering the fact that I’m

only sixteen. I wonder how many there’ll have been by the time I’m

twenty! There’s this lady at the nursing home I volunteer at, and

she’s had so many husbands and lived so many lives. I look at her

and I think, she must not have even one regret, because she’s done

and seen it all.