Lara Jean urges Peter to invite his father to graduation

Lara Jean urges Peter to invite his estranged father to graduation because she believes that, despite their painful history, he may want his father there—and may someday regret closing the door. Her appeal begins after she sees the pride and love in his father’s face at a lacrosse game; it does not resolve their conflict, but shifts the question from what his father deserves to what Peter might need.

Background and Stakes

Peter says his father had many chances to build a relationship with him and insists that those chances have passed. He suspects his father wants to attend chiefly to claim credit and boast to his golf buddies that his son plays lacrosse for the University of Virginia. Peter underscores his independence by saying that he is a man now and that his father had nothing to do with the person he became.

Lara Jean’s view is complicated by what she has witnessed: when Peter’s father watched him on the lacrosse field, his expression showed pride and love. That observation does not erase Peter’s experience or establish what his father intends. Instead, it gives Lara Jean a reason to ask whether Peter might allow a different possibility, even while she recognizes that Peter sees the relationship from the inside and she does not.

The Appeal

Lara Jean first acknowledges that Peter’s father seems to be trying to have a relationship with him. Peter answers that it is too late. Lara Jean then asks him to consider giving his father a chance, but Peter replies that she cannot understand his situation and contrasts his father with her own, whom he sees as devoted to his daughters. He fears that letting his father back into his life will lead to another hurt.

The conversation turns on Lara Jean’s recent bereavement. After losing Stormy, she cannot treat the time people have with one another as guaranteed. She tells Peter that the issue is not his father but Peter himself: he should consider whether refusing contact might leave him with regrets, and should not hurt himself merely to spite his father. Her argument is not that reconciliation is certain or that Peter owes his father forgiveness. It is an appeal to leave open a choice whose consequences Peter will have to live with.

Peter tries to end the subject, saying he came to make Lara Jean feel better, not to discuss his father. She accepts the boundary but asks him to promise to think about inviting him to graduation. When Peter starts to respond, she interrupts to stress that he need not decide immediately: graduation is still a month away, and she is asking only for consideration, not a yes or no. He sighs, then changes the subject by asking how her speech went.

A Decision Left Open

The question returns as graduation approaches. While Peter and Lara Jean sit on bleachers trying on their caps, he shows her his graduation announcements, bearing his full name, Peter Grant Kavinsky, in embossed lettering. Lara Jean asks whether he has thought any more about inviting his father. Peter looks around to check whether anyone can hear and asks why she keeps bringing it up, a guarded response that shows the subject remains sensitive.

Lara Jean touches his cap and explains that she thinks, deep down, he wants his father to be present, if only so he can see what Peter has accomplished and what he has missed. Peter answers, “We’ll see,” and she leaves the matter there. Unlike her earlier request, this exchange ends without a promise; the tentative answer preserves Peter’s right to decide for himself.

Context and Significance

The appeal arises during a period marked by farewells and family milestones. At prom, Lara Jean wears Stormy’s ring in her honor, thinking of Stormy’s past dances. At graduation, she looks through the crowd for Peter’s family, wondering whether his father is there with Peter’s mother and brother or seated apart, and whether she will meet Peter’s two half brothers. These details frame the invitation as more than a matter of ceremony: graduation makes family presence visible at the moment Peter’s achievements are being recognized.

The book does not establish here whether Peter’s father accepts an invitation or attends the graduation. Its emphasis is instead on the movement from refusal to unresolved possibility. Lara Jean’s bereavement lends urgency to her warning against future regret, while Peter’s guarded replies keep the painful history of his father’s absence in view. The scene’s outcome is therefore modest but consequential: Peter has not agreed to reconcile, yet he has not given Lara Jean the definitive no he offered before.