Jen’s letter to Eric.

After Eric shares his appreciation for Jen, she feels ready to share the real story of her disappearance. She makes it clear that several details of her first letter were real (such as when she saw the birds), and this letter should be seen as just clarification. She admits that she lied, but believes that since it was her painful story, she has the right to tell it as she wishes.

One of the first big differences between this story and the last, was that she reveals she had a brother named Matthew who died before he was a year old. This tragedy caused her parents to “check out.” Consequently, Jen felt like she didn’t matter, and saw running away as her chance to punish them.

She met a boy who lived occasionally in a door factory to escape his alcoholic parents. She can’t remember his name, and asks “In the end it doesn’t matter, does it?” Throughout the book, the importance of names is explored. Here, Jen shows that his name does not matter, as it has no real relevance to the story. She implies that with this logic, it doesn’t really matter that she lied before; this is the real story and that’s all that matters. She refers to the boy as Tom throughout the letter.

Jen realized that since Tom didn’t know her, she could pretend to be anyone. She decided to make up a background that would please him, pretending to be a girl who frequently runs away. After Jen spent a few nights alone in the factory, she decided to turn herself in to a police officer.

The ending of the story is very sad. Jen admits to all the ways in which she created a disaster: she hurt her parents and she pretended to be someone she wasn’t to Tom and then betrayed him. Smudges on the sheet indicate tears. Indeed, it is a very emotional story. The first letter covered all the ways the story continues to haunt her (“Jenny-in-Danger”), while this letter gives more of an emotional narrative of what she was thinking.