Lara Jean's Scrapbook for Peter

Lara Jean Covey’s scrapbook for Peter Kavinsky is a carefully assembled record of their relationship and the memories surrounding it. Presented as a graduation gift at a moment when Peter is hurt by the disclosure that his father had secretly watched one of his lacrosse games, the scrapbook redirects their conversation toward what the couple has shared. Its photographs and saved objects make the past tangible, while Lara Jean’s decision to give Peter the letter that brought them together turns the book into a promise that their time together mattered, whatever comes next.

Making and Giving the Scrapbook

After telling Peter that she had encountered his father at a lacrosse game, Lara Jean sees that he is trying to conceal his hurt. When Peter asks to stop discussing his father, she does not press him; instead, she remembers the gift she has prepared. She retrieves it from her hatbox and tells him she did not expect a present in return. Her anticipation is conspicuous: she hopes the scrapbook will cheer him up, and urges him to open it.

The book is a personal keepsake rather than a formal account. Its materials come from different moments in their shared life, including a photograph Lara Jean found in a shoebox while she and Kitty Song cleared the attic to make room for Trina Rothschild’s boxes. The circumstances of that discovery connect the scrapbook to a changing household as well as to the couple’s earlier history: an image rescued during the practical work of making room for a new family member becomes the opening artifact in Peter’s gift.

A Record of Shared History

The first page holds a photograph from the first day of middle school, when the children were waiting for the bus. Peter stands with his arms around John Ambrose McClaren and Trevor Pike, while Lara Jean and Genevieve link arms. Genevieve is whispering to Lara Jean, who is turned toward her rather than the camera. The photograph preserves details Lara Jean remembers from the day: she wore Margot Song’s heather-gray camisole and a jean skirt, and felt grown-up in them. Her hair is long, as it is in the present; Genevieve had tried to persuade her to cut it short, but Lara Jean refused. The group looks young to her, and she notices Peter’s skinny legs alongside John’s rosy cheeks and Trevor’s chubby ones.

Lara Jean captions the photograph “THE BEGINNING.” Peter recognizes the image as a picture of “Baby Lara Jean and Baby Peter” and asks where she found it. His affectionate response makes the page more than a record of childhood: it lets the couple view their present relationship against a shared past that began before they were a couple. When Peter jokes about the photograph, Lara Jean calls his name, and he says he is kidding before turning to the rest of the book.

The later pages gather varied traces of their relationship instead of arranging it as a simple sequence of milestones. They include a homecoming picture; a photograph from Halloween, when Lara Jean dressed as Mulan and Peter wore a dragon costume; a receipt from Tart and Tangy; one of Peter’s earlier notes; and photographs from Senior Week and prom. Dried rose petals from Lara Jean’s corsage preserve a physical remnant of prom, while the Sixteen Candles picture adds another image to the collection. Together, these items make the scrapbook’s history both visual and material: it remembers not only how the couple looked, but also the ordinary objects and small exchanges associated with their time together.

Some keepsakes remain outside the scrapbook. Lara Jean keeps the ticket stub from their first real date and Peter’s note saying “I like you in blue” in her hatbox, and says she will never let them go. The distinction matters: the scrapbook is a gift, but not an exhaustive surrender of every private token. Lara Jean chooses what Peter will receive and retains other objects for herself, so the book records a shared history without replacing the personal archive she continues to keep.

The Letter and the Book’s Meaning

The scrapbook’s most significant inclusion is Lara Jean’s original letter to Peter, the one that brought them together. She had wanted to keep it, but comes to feel that Peter should have it. When he reaches the page, he remembers that she had wanted to keep the letter and says so. Lara Jean explains that she changed her mind and asks him to promise to keep it forever. The exchange gives the gift a reciprocal dimension: the letter once initiated their relationship, and now Lara Jean places it in Peter’s keeping as a token of the history it began.

Lara Jean understands the collected objects as future evidence: proof that they were there and loved each other, and assurance that the time they shared belongs to them regardless of what happens later. That hope does not claim to know the future or guarantee that the relationship will remain unchanged. Instead, it gives the scrapbook its purpose: the past can be preserved even when the future is uncertain. Her wording makes memory an act of care, and the letter is the clearest emblem of that care because it links the couple’s beginning to the possibility of their separation or change.

A photograph from karaoke with Lara Jean’s grandmother broadens the scrapbook beyond dates and school events. Lara Jean sang “You’re So Vain” and dedicated it to Peter; Peter sang “Style” and then performed “Unchained Melody” with her grandmother. Afterward, her grandmother asked both of them to promise to take a Korean language class at the University of Virginia. She took many selfies with Peter, made one her phone’s home screen, and heard friends at her apartment complex say he looked like a movie star. Peter delighted in that compliment for days after Lara Jean told him. The page preserves a shared family occasion, the grandmother’s connection with Peter, and a plan associated with the university they discussed.

Peter’s Response

Peter spends some time on the karaoke page without speaking. Lara Jean explains that the book is something to remember them by, making explicit the memorial purpose already expressed in her decision to include the original letter. He then snaps the scrapbook shut, thanks her, and says it is awesome with a quick smile. When she asks whether he will look at the rest, he says he will do so later. His response is warm but restrained: he accepts the gift and its meaning, while the scene does not show him reading the remaining pages.

The scrapbook therefore works at once as a graduation present, a selected archive, and a material answer to the couple’s uncertain future. Its contents move from a childhood photograph captioned as a beginning, through shared occasions and small keepsakes, to the letter that made their relationship possible. Given after Lara Jean chooses not to keep pressing Peter about his father, it offers comfort through recollection rather than argument. The final emphasis is not that the past can settle what will happen, but that the couple can keep a record of what their time together has already meant.