Games Untold

“‘You act like what you did with your inheritance is nothing,’ he said. ‘Like anyone would have done it. But I wouldn’t have. Grayson wouldn’t have. None of us would. You act like what you’re doing with your foundation isn’t extraordinary—or like, if it is, it’s because the work is so much bigger than you. But, Avery? What you’re doing…It’s something.’ A Hawthorne kind of something. Everything.”

Jameson Hawthorne’s intimate dialogue with Avery provides insight into his character, his outlook, his self-regard, and his relationship with Avery. Jameson uses a respectful, insistent tone, which conveys his desire to communicate clearly with Avery and to impress upon her the significance of her recent actions. His words convey the depth of his and Avery’s connection and illustrate how loving Avery is already changing Jameson.

“I could make him tell me everything. That was the rule between us. It was too easy for him to don masks, too easy for me to lie to myself—but Tahiti meant no protection, no dancing around the truth, no hiding. Tahiti meant baring it all. You could make me tell you. But I am asking you not to. Jameson Hawthorne didn’t ask for much. He tempted. He invited. He created. He gave. But he was asking me for this.”

Avery’s internal monologue shows how Finding and Accepting Love has developed her understanding of intimacy and trust. Her description of Jameson shows how deeply she understands his character, while her reflections on whether she should use their code word convey her sensitivity to Jameson’s desires. Both Avery and Jameson show their trust in the other—Avery through her faith that Jameson would tell her if she asked, and Jameson through his belief that Avery will hold to their agreement.

“I slipped the infinity ring back onto my right ring finger and then did exactly as the note had instructed. In the pocket of the parka, I found a note, written on spiral notebook paper and folded in half four times, reminding me of the kind of note one middle schooler might slip to another. I opened it, and the words Jameson had written there took my breath away. Like the sun and the moon / I loved her. / Saint Avery. / Until death and beyond.”

This passage uses symbolism and imagery to develop the collection’s theme of finding and accepting love. The images of the infinity ring and Jameson’s proposal poem illustrate Avery and Jameson’s indelible connection. The ring and note also prove that the characters’ relationship will last over time.

“There was an art to being invisible. In this town, with my last name, it took effort to be nobody, to make people look right through me. I was quiet. I never wore makeup. I kept my hair just long enough to pull back into a nondescript ponytail. When I wore it down, its sole purpose was falling into my face. But the real key to being the right kind of invisible, the thing that mattered far more than making myself quiet and nondescript, was keeping the world at arm’s length.”

Hannah Rooney uses a declarative tone to describe herself. She asserts that she knows herself well and that her self-imposed isolation and invisibility are a manifestation of her truest self. Her use of language affects this determined tone, but also subtextually implies that Hannah is hiding from her pain, fear, and insecurity. She is using her “makeup,” “nondescript ponytail,” and “quiet” demeanor to push others away and to hide her true self.

“My apartment honestly wasn’t much of one. I could reach the kitchen counter from the bed. My three measly kitchen cabinets held more books than pans. On good nights, I read until I fell asleep, wrapping myself in fantasy worlds like they were blankets. Tonight, I fell back on an older habit instead. Ripping a blank page out of one of my clinicals notebooks, I folded the top right corner of the paper down—and then I just kept folding.”

Hannah’s apartment is a metaphor for her life and character. The space is small and simple but offers a quiet, thoughtful escape. However, Hannah’s activities while in this space, like reading and folding origami, are manifestations of her anxiety and need for escape. However, the apartment is just a temporary way to separate herself from her family, showing that she still needs to find other ways to express and liberate herself.

“‘Four.’ Jackson came to a standstill. I stared at him, not understanding what he was saying. ‘I saw the boat that took their group over to the island this morning.’ The fisherman’s words came out stilted. ‘There weren’t three passengers on that boat, Hannah, there were four.’ Suddenly, I knew. I knew why Jackson’s voice was cracking. I knew why he kept saying my name. I knew who the fourth person on Hawthorne Island was.”

Jackson Currie’s announcement about the Hawthorne Island fire unmoors Hannah’s character. The latter lines of the quote capture Hannah’s inability to process the news of her sister Kaylie’s death. Her resistance to receiving this information and inability to articulate Kaylie’s death foreshadow how deeply this loss will affect her psychologically. This moment also inspires Hannah’s relationship with Tobias Hawthorne and thus creates emotional conflict for her character.

“For the first time in my life, I felt like maybe I was capable of killing, like maybe I really was a Rooney. Blood for blood. It wouldn’t have been hard. All it would have taken was a hand over Toby Hawthorne’s mouth and another holding his nose. In this state, he wouldn’t have been able to fight. I knelt beside the mattress and glared bullets at the boy who had my sister’s blood on his soft, rich-boy hands. And then I swallowed, blinked back tears, and glanced back at Jackson. ‘I need some cool water.’”

Hannah’s inability to kill Toby proves that she is an empathetic and gracious character. She has spent her entire adult life trying to separate herself from the Rooney name, but the impulse to kill makes her wonder if she is no better than her parents. This private internal moment scares Hannah, but her actions at the passage’s end show how she is different from her family. She asks for cool water because she intends to help Toby—a decision that reflects her true nature.

“With Kaylie dead, they probably wouldn’t even be surprised. All I had to do was leave. So why did I drive back to my apartment instead? Why did I break down in the shower instead of getting the hell out of Dodge? Why did I get out of the damn shower, get dressed, and decide to go back to the shack? To him?”

Hannah’s love for Toby trumps her grief over Kaylie and her anger with her parents. This moment presents Hannah’s divided interiority. She acknowledges her freedom and autonomy but also makes a conscious decision to go back to Toby. The list of questions captures Hannah’s desire to understand herself and her burgeoning feelings for Toby.

“He seemed to take that as an invitation—not to come after me but to tell me exactly what he saw when he drank in every last detail. ‘You have ways of going elsewhere in your mind. It’s like you’re a dreamer trapped in a cynic’s body, a cynic’s life. Your hands are never still but always steady. And your face—it’s like you have control over every little muscle, even the ones of which most people are completely unaware.’”

Toby’s declarative tone and assertive use of language convey how deeply he understands Hannah. Hannah is accustomed to being overlooked and has even chosen to largely disappear from society out of self-protectiveness. In this scene, however, Toby shows how closely he has been paying attention, illustrating the depth of his love.

“‘Less crying,’ Kaylie ordered imperiously. ‘More wild abandon.’ Let go, I told myself. Feel the music. In my heart I knew: She was the music. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be, but I danced the way she did, like I’d been born shouting my joy and my fury to the moon.”

Hannah’s dream encounter with her dead sister marks a turning point in her character arc and storyline. Kaylie’s specter is a narrative device used to effect change in Hannah’s life and to usher her toward healing. Hannah finds perspective on her grief and her romance after she sees Kaylie in her dream. The use of words like “heart,” “music,” “real,” “danced,” “shouting,” “joy,” and “fury” illustrate Kaylie’s vibrant nature and her enlivening effect on Hannah.

“I never decided to let him in. I just stopped lying to myself, and there he was—past my shields, under my skin, this horrible boy, this person I’d hated and hated and hated and somehow didn’t hate anymore.”

Hannah is actively finding and accepting love in this passage. She acknowledges her feelings for Toby and opens herself to romance and joy. “The Same Backward as Forward” uses the enemies-to-lovers trope as the scaffolding for Hannah and Toby’s love affair. With her repetition of the word “hate,” Hannah emphasizes the depth of her previous feelings, highlighting the significance of the shift.

“‘I loved you,’ he whispered, ‘when the world was pain and the only thing that made sense was your eyes. I loved you before I knew to hate myself, and I have loved you every day since.’ I love you. I love you. I love you.”

Toby’s intimate lines of dialogue convey his devotion to and deep affection for Avery. He uses the word “love” three times in just two sentences. The italicized portion is Hannah’s thought, as she latches on to his declaration and these repetitions become a mantra for her. The use of repetition in this passage thus underscores the intensity and sincerity of the characters’ feelings for each other.

“Standing in an enormous, sparkling marble bathroom bigger than my first apartment, waiting to see if a second pink line appears on that stick, I look from the pregnancy test to the ring on my left ring finger: a deep red stone that glows almost black in some lights. It’s a garnet, not a ruby, and he cut the stone himself. It’s perfect. I think about the man who put this ring on my finger, and for once in my life, I don’t daydream anything. I remember.”

The bathroom, the pregnancy test, and the ring are juxtaposed to illustrate Libby and Nash’s romance. The luxurious bathroom captures the stability and decadence of the life they’ve created together, while the pregnancy test symbolizes their future and the garnet ring symbolizes their history. This moment also creates a narrative gateway into Libby’s reflections on her relationship and contributes to the collection’s explorations of finding and accepting love. Now that Libby has found and embraced Nash, she has established a more secure life for herself.

“‘Would Avery’s mom be proud of me?’ It’s probably a silly question, but Avery’s mother was the only person, when I was a kid, who ever made me feel special. And normal. She made me feel like I was both of those things at the same time, even though they weren’t the same at all.”

Libby’s heartfelt Magic 8 Ball question conveys her longing for family, love, and acceptance. In turn, remembering Avery’s mom provides insight into Libby’s past and the complexity of family dynamics. This scene also shows Libby’s growth as a character, as she is sharing a vulnerable aspect of her past with Nash.

“He kisses me until I believe him with every fiber of my being: Whatever my answer, everything is going to be fine. Whatever my answer, we are. And that’s why I’m ready. That’s why I keep kissing him and shake the Magic 8 Ball. That’s why I pull back and keep shaking it, until the answer I want pops up. One word. Just one. YES.”

Libby’s use of repetition, anaphora, and fragmentation affects an urgent, insistent narrative tone. Her tone mirrors her emotional experience when Nash proposes, and she decides to accept. The scene captures how their romance has taught Libby to accept herself and foreshadows the future the characters will create together.

“And second, it meant that it was on! No swords. No duels. No holds barred. Just, per the rules of Hawthorne Go Fish, a good, old-fashioned brotherly brawl! ‘I want you both to know,’ Xander announced five minutes later, as he climbed on top of the antique card table, preparing to hurl himself off it, ‘that I tackle with love!’”

Xander Hawthorne’s unique interpretation of Go Fish illustrates how the Hawthorne family uses games and activities to express love. Xander tackles his brothers after winning the card game, but he is doing so to communicate his heartfelt emotions for his family. The moment speaks to the collection’s overarching use of games as a motif of expression, joy, and care.

“In that moment, Xander heard everything that Rebecca wasn’t saying. Her entire life revolved around—and had always revolved around—what Emily wanted. Emily, who had a heart condition. Emily, who their mother obsessed over. Emily, who had always, always been given her way.”

Xander inhabits his friend Rebecca’s experience in this scene, which shows his empathetic nature, and the repetition illustrates the depth of his understanding. Xander can relate to Rebecca’s experience because he’s familiar with the Complexity of Family Dynamics. This moment illustrates how Xander’s family complexities help him to understand others.

“Steeling himself for what he was about to read, Grayson took it. ‘The Wind,’ he read out loud, the words coming out perplexed. ‘Cat Stevens, 1971.’ It wasn’t a song he was familiar with, but Grayson was fairly certain that it involved neither milkshakes nor yards. ‘Here.’ Jameson handed Grayson his phone. ‘It’s only fair that you listen to it once before you sing.’ Grayson did, and something twisted inside him as he listened. It was beautiful in its own way and suited to his voice, a song about mistakes and what the heart wanted and knowing how life was going to turn out.”

The Cat Stevens song that the Hawthorne boys make Grayson sing at karaoke symbolizes life’s simultaneous complexities and joys. Listening to the song changes Grayson and gives him perspective on his family, himself, and his future. He has a physiological response to the lyrics—an experience illustrated by the visceral image of something twisting inside him. This passage reiterates how the Hawthornes’ brotherhood has let them reinvent themselves and their definition of family.

“I had no memories of this day, no memories of the days when Libby’s mom had used mine as a babysitter at all, but Libby had told me before: Her ninth birthday, the only birthday she’d celebrated with my mom and me, had been the best day of her life. And there it was, immortalized in a frame.”

The framed photograph that Jameson gives to Libby is an illustration of his love and care. The image depicts a special moment in Libby’s life, giving an ephemeral memory a tangible existence. Furthermore, Avery realizes how much Jameson cares about her when she sees how thoughtful he is about his gift for her sister.

“Wrapping paper fell to the floor as Grayson turned the plain gray rock over in his hands. It was smooth—ocean smooth, the result of thousands of years of waves. The only parts of the rock that weren’t smooth were the inscriptions, front and back. On the front, I’d gone for a familiar Latin phrase. EST UNUS EX NOBIS. NOS DEFENDAT EIUS. It was something Grayson had said about me once. On the back, I’d opted for English, something that I had said to him. IT GOES BOTH WAYS.”

The rock that Avery gives to Grayson symbolizes both friendship and reciprocity. The rock has two sides, each with a different message, illustrating the complexity of their relationship. Furthermore, the messages are specific to Avery and Grayson’s connection, and the rock itself has been worn, shaped, and beautified by time—much like the characters’ connection.

“Nash snorted. ‘My heart ain’t ice, Xan.’ That was why they were here, why Nash had used his yearly 911, why the four of them were celebrating with one epic night. Nash Hawthorne had fallen in love. He’d let someone in. He’d proposed. To Xander, that seemed as breathtakingly magnificent as the massive wall of ice in front of them.”

The Hawthorne brothers’ bachelor party activities illustrate how they use their games to relate to one another. Xander had the wall constructed to express his happiness over Nash’s romance. The wall also offers the brothers a chance to spend time together in a meaningful way, as a team undertaking a challenge.

“‘Someday, Lib and me, we’ll have a family, and our kids?’ Nash’s whiskey-smooth voice grew thick. ‘They will always be enough for me.’ Nash looked down at the drop and didn’t so much as blink. ‘Let the great Tobias Hawthorne chew on that.’ Xander joined Nash at the stadium’s edge, followed by Jameson, then Grayson. For a moment, the four of them stared out at the city. And they jumped.”

Nash’s declarative tone in this scene captures his internal resolve and his self-pride. Nash is standing up for his life and his choices, despite his complicated family history and legacy. He is asserting that his life and identity are valuable and that he’d be happy to let Tobias witness them. He refuses to let his wealth and legacy limit who he becomes, showing the depth of his growth over the narrative.

“Xander felt that. They all felt it. This moment. This time in Nash’s life. This change. ‘Always,’ Nash said, his voice coming out rough and low. ‘Lib and me getting married won’t change that. It won’t change us. This.’ Silently, Grayson raised his glass all the way up. One by one, the others did the same.”

The use of fragmentation and repetition in this passage stylistically illustrates the Hawthorne brothers’ devotion to one another through an emphasis on their collective actions. The boys know that they are experiencing a transition in their lives as brothers, but they’re also determined to sustain their connection no matter where life takes them. The moment thus reiterates their indelible bond and captures how their brotherhood has given them a new version of family.