I’ve never gotten a love letter before. But reading these notes like this, one after the other, it feels like I have. It’s like . . . it’s like there’s only ever been Peter. Like everyone else that came before him, they were all to prepare me for this. I think I see the difference now, between loving someone from afar and loving someone up close. When you see them up close, you see the real them, but they also get to see the real you. And Peter does. He sees me, and I see him.
Love is scary: it changes; it can go away. That’s part of the risk. I don’t want to be scared anymore. I want to be brave, like Margot. It’s almost a new year, after all.
Close to midnight, I gather up Kitty and the puppy and the sparklers. We put on heavy coats and I make Kitty wear a hat. “Should we put a hat on Jamie too?” she asks me.
“He doesn’t need one,” I tell her. “He’s already got on a fur coat.”
The stars are out by the dozen; they look like faraway gems. We’re so lucky to live by the mountains the way we do. You just feel closer to the stars. To heaven.
I light up sparklers for each of us, and Kitty starts dancing around the snow making a ring of fire with hers. She’s trying to coax Jamie to jump through but he isn’t having it. All he wants to do is pee around the yard. It’s lucky we have a fence, or I bet he’d pee his way down this whole block.
Josh’s bedroom light is on. I see him in the window just as he opens it and calls out, “Song girls!”
Kitty hollers, “Wanna light a sparkler?”
“Maybe next year,” Josh calls back. I look up at him and wave my sparkler, and he smiles, and there’s just this feeling of all rightness between us. One way or another, Josh will be in our lives. And I’m certain, I’m so suddenly certain that everything is exactly the way it’s supposed to be, that I don’t have to be so afraid of good-bye, because good-bye doesn’t have to be forever.
When I’m back in my room in my flannel nightgown, I get out my special flowy pen and my good thick stationery, and I start to write. Not a good-bye letter. Just a plain old love letter.
Dear Peter . . .
Acknowledgments
To All My Literary Loves:
To Zareen Jaffery, fairest of them all. I think you and I might just be meant to be.
To Justin Chanda, for putting a ring on it.
To everyone at S&S and especially Paul Crichton, Lydia Finn, Sooji Kim, Chrissy Noh, Lucille Rettino, Nicole Russo, Anne Zafian for being my main squeeze(s). And hello there, Katy Hershberger, we’re about to get to know each other very well.
To Lucy Cummins, I lay flowers and chocolate-covered hearts at your feet for all the beauty you bring to each book.
To Adele Griffin, Julie Farkas, and Bennett Madison—readers, writers, and friends—sonnets for you all. I’m so in awe of your talent and so honored to be your friend.
To Siobhan Vivian, my dearest, if there is such a thing as literary soul mates, you are mine.
And to Emily van Beek, for everything, always.
All of my love,
Jenny
www.mobilism.org
© ADAM KRAUSE
Jenny Han is the author of the New York Times bestselling books The Summer I Turned Pretty, It’s Not Summer Without You, and We’ll Always Have Summer. She has also written two middle-grade novels, Shug and Clara Lee and the Apple Pie Dream. Her latest books, Burn for Burn and Fire with Fire, were co-written with Siobhan Vivian. Jenny lives in Brooklyn, New York. Visit her at dearjennyhan.com.
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Also by Jenny Han
Shug
The Summer I Turned Pretty
It’s Not Summer Without You
We’ll Always Have Summer
Cowritten with Siobhan Vivian
Burn for Burn
Fire with Fire
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2014 by Jenny Han
Jacket photograph © 2014 by Anna Wolf
Jacket hand-lettering copyright © 2014 by Nancy Howell
Jacket design by Lucy Ruth Cummins
Jacket photography copyright © 2014 by Anna Wolf
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Book design by Lucy Ruth Cummins
The text for this book is set in Bembo Std.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Han, Jenny.
To all the boys I’ve loved before / Jenny Han. — First edition.
pages cm
Summary: “Lara Jean writes love letters to all the boys she has loved and then hides them in a hatbox until one day those letters are accidentally sent”—Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-1-4424-2670-2 (hardback) — ISBN 978-1-4424-2672-6 (ebook) [1. Love—Fiction. 2. Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. 3. Sisters—Fiction.] I. Title. II. Title: To all the boys I have loved before.
PZ7.H18944To 2014
[Fic]—dc23
2013022311
Content
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67