I think Jo never loved Laurie. They were friends, he loved her, she didn't. Jo always said she didn't want to be a wife but I think it's because she was scared and insecure about it. As she grows she starts to think no one will ever love her and she truly will never be a wife and then decides to write the letter to Laurie, cuz at least he loves her right? But she doesn't love him, not that way. She was just scared of being alone forever. Amy and Laurie are a lovely couple.

I truly believe Laurie and Jo were platonic soulmates whereas Amy and Laurie are romantic soulmates

When Jo writes her love letter to Laurie she says “My dear Teddy, I miss you more than I can express. I used to think that the worst fate was to be a wife, I was young and stupid. But now I have changed. The worst fate is to live my life without you in it.” I think Jo finds it hard to express her feelings without going against her beliefs/ideas about what women should and shouldn’t be in the world. Like when Jo tells her sister Meg that she doesn’t need to get married to John and that she will get bored after 2 years. Later on, Jo telling her mum that she is sick of women having their only purpose of to love. Jo realised that women are more than that. To all the people saying Jo felt ‘lonely’ and needed to fill a void that’s why she confesses to Laurie her love that was not the reason. When Jo left to go to New York she left her sisters behind. And when her sister Beth got sick she came back in a heart beat. Stopping everything that she was doing her dreams and ambition for her sister. When her sister Amy burned her papers Jo got angry at Amy and even said she will never ever forgive her and then when her sister nearly drowned she went back to talking to her in a heart beat realising that her sister was more important. Similarly as soon as she rejects Laurie she kept writing to him but he was the one that was not answering to her letters. Jo truly did care for him. She just didn’t have herself figured out yet. Jo thought a woman cannot marry and pursue her dreams at the same time in the end she realises she can when she marries the professor. She realises this before however and wanted to tell Laurie by confessing to him through the letter but it was to late. Jo wanted it to be Laurie that she marries. Jo even admitted to her mum that when she gets angry her anger can blind her. Like when she rejected Laurie because of her anger blinds her to thinking women should be independent and never married, but she doesn’t realise women can be both. Jo is a strong willed character who refuses to back down but then she does on all of these occasions she does it for the people that she loves. She did that when she rejected Laurie. She was angry because she had dreams she wanted to pursue and marriage was not on her radar back then. However after loosing her sister for good this time she realises the mistake she made rejecting Laurie. She realises death is her worst enemy and it can come in the way of things even when she thinks she is in control. She steers the wheel of her life, she is independent, unmarried, in New York writing doing everything she ever wanted but death still has a way of ruining things. When she comes to this realisation she cannot bear to loose Laurie in the same way without telling him how she truly feels. Because Jo finally realises that the love she holds for him is greater than whatever it is she wants to do as a single women.

"i don't want to say no because one day i'll realise that i should've said yes and i'll return to you and you wouldn't love me anymore"