P.S. I Still Love You

Lara Jean feels touched and impressed by Peter’s Valentine’s Day gift of a locket necklace. It is an expensive necklace that she has seen in his mother’s antique store and has desired for a long time (as she has Peter himself). Together with the necklace, Peter has also written her a romantic Valentine’s Day poem, and the two gifts together make her feel chastened, as well as touched. She feels guilty for her suspicions about his ongoing closeness with his ex-girlfriend Genevieve and also for what she perceives to be the relative meagerness of her own Valentine’s Day card to him.

Peter’s gift turns out not to be quite as thoughtful as it seems. He has plagiarized the Valentine’s Day poem from the Edgar Allen Poe poem “Annabel Lee,” and he callously asks for the locket necklace back when he and Lara temporarily break up, as if it were an engagement ring. On the other hand, his ongoing closeness to Genevieve turns out to be more or less innocent, at least on Peter’s side; he is indeed trying to be her friend during a difficult time, just as he has told Lara Jean. Rather than showing his deviousness, then, his closeness to Genevieve shows his loyalty and strength of character; it also shows his insecurity and neediness and his very masculine addiction to being needed.