Vanessa hates love letters.
Love letters are robotic and lack the passion in the voice, the spontaneity of the heart, the trials of the mind that Vanessa so desires. Heartfelt phrases of devotion written down to perfection are an utter symbol of a cliché, an attempt to be perfect in an imperfect world. And Vanessa was a lot of things, but she wasn't naïve enough to know that there is no such thing as perfect.
Vanessa loves that she has never received a love letter.
Dan was completely unrequited, and Nate knows better than to give her a love letter.
Nate. Her boyfriend of four years; needless to say his love letters were the arsenic of relationships.
This might contribute to Vanessa's hate of love letters. But she would never fully admit that.
The first love letter Nate wrote was to his childhood sweetheart Blair; synonymous to the term Upper East Side, Blair was the queen of Constance Billard, and in turn Nate her king. Everyone had expected them to be married by now, at least that's how Dan tells it. Vanessa wouldn't know much about that love letter, but their sudden unraveling in the hands of apparent deceit and lies was known all throughout the city. Nate and Blair were doomed from the lies their relationship revolved around.
The second letter Nate wrote was to Jenny, one that had it's own tales of deceit, from every party involved. Vanessa knew everything about this love letter. Nate and Jenny were doomed from the start.
So when Nate hands her a colorful piece of stationary with her name on it, right in the middle of their living room, it takes all her strength not to lose consciousness. She feels as if she's outside her own body as her knees quit on her, and thanks whoever up there for the sofa underneath her.
She slowly opens up the letter and reads the contents of it, the memories of their life together flashing past her like one of her amateur films, all the while wondering when they will realize they were ultimately doomed, and her facial expression changes from one of pain, to one of confusion. "Look Up."
As she does what the letter instructs her to, she sees Nate standing up over her, and instead of being drawn to his welcoming eyes, she's drawn to Nate's outstretched hand and the velvety box inhabiting it.
"I just can't find the perfect words to tell you how lucky I am to have you in my life, and what you mean to me, and how I can't go another day without you as my wife, and I know this isn't what you expected and I'm rambling but…"
"No. It is. This. Us. It's perfect."
Vanessa's never received a love letter; and by the looks of things, she never will. For the rest of her life.