Opening
A raucous house party becomes a crucible where secrets explode and identities crack. Across one chaotic night, Jack Masselin hits rock bottom, Libby Strout claims her agency, and the fragile illusion of popularity shatters into humiliation, panic, and hard-won clarity.
What Happens
Chapter 111: Jack
In a dark closet, Jack Masselin sits with a sobbing Caroline Lushamp—a side of her he has never seen. “Why don’t you want me?” she asks, the line landing like a confession and a dare. Jack fumbles for the words he thinks she wants—she’s beautiful, she’s popular—but he knows compliments won’t fill the ache she reveals.
He can’t say he wants her, not with his feelings for Libby hardening into certainty. Caroline pulls on her clothes, whispers, “I can’t do this anymore,” and leaves him alone in the dark, the silence louder than any accusation.
Chapter 112: Libby
Across the party, Libby Strout makes out with Mick, a sweet, cute boy from Copenhagen. For a minute, desire feels like power—proof that she’s wanted. Then a clearer voice cuts through the music: I don’t want to be Pauline Potter. I don’t want him to be my first. I don’t want him to be my anything.
Libby stops. She tells Mick she’s done, bracing for anger, but he’s kind, and the world doesn’t end. The moment hums with a new kind of confidence: she can want and still say no. It’s a decisive step in her journey toward Self-Acceptance and Body Image.
Chapter 113: Jack
Jack staggers into the kitchen and finds Dave Kaminski doing shots. Already rattled, he piles alcohol and weed onto a brain that can’t recognize faces on a good day. The party swells into a faceless, roaring crowd; strangers blur into a single, menacing mass. He breaks his survival rules—stops scanning for tells, looks people in the eye, searches for a lifeline—and gets nothing.
The air thins. Walls breathe. Panic claws up his throat. He spots a girl in black and decides she’s Caroline—the out he needs. He grabs her, kisses her hard, and begs the moment to reset everything so she’ll drive him home.
Chapter 114: Libby
With her friends—including Bailey Bishop—Libby sees Jack making out with a girl. It looks like the old Jack, the automatic charmer who floats effortlessly toward the most popular girl in the room. The sight guts her.
She fights through the crowd and slips outside, ignoring Bailey calling her name. The night air is cool but not kind. The sting of what feels like betrayal tightens around her chest, pulling her back into Loneliness and Isolation.
Chapter 115: Jack
The kiss ends—two Carolines stare back. One is the girl he just kissed; the other, with a beauty mark by her eye, is the real Caroline. The first is her cousin, enjoying the spectacle. The real Caroline starts to cry. “Bastard,” she says. Jack, cornered by jeers and confusion, kills the music. The room stills.
He steps into a spotlight he never wants and announces: he has prosopagnosia. Faces don’t stick. Every meeting resets.
“I have a rare neurological disorder called prosopagnosia, which means I can’t recognize faces... the next time I see you it’ll be like I’ve never seen you before.”
Laughter. A slap. Jokes about blindness. The crowd tilts from curious to cruel, a mob with torches looking for a monster. Jack shoves toward the door, gets tripped, then cornered on the porch by a big guy who starts swinging. As the blows land, one thought surfaces—“More weight”—and the world drops away. The tragedy locks in: a brutal climax of not Seeing Beyond Appearances.
Character Development
These chapters strip the characters to the bone, exposing what they fear and what they choose.
- Jack: His façade collapses. He can’t control the narrative, can’t manage the room, can’t hide his disorder. Publicly naming prosopagnosia costs him status, safety, and anonymity, but it marks the first honest step toward a life not built on performance.
- Libby: She chooses herself. Ending the make-out on her terms turns desire into agency; even when her heart wrenches at Jack’s kiss, her worth no longer hinges on attention.
- Caroline: The queen bee’s mask slips. Her plea—want me—reveals a deep insecurity, complicating her role from antagonist to vulnerable girl terrified of rejection.
Themes & Symbols
The night centers the struggle to see—and be seen—for who you are. Jack’s confession collides with a crowd that refuses to accept anything outside the image they’ve already cast. That failure of recognition makes his humiliation feel inevitable: a boy who can’t read faces facing a world that won’t read him. Meanwhile, Libby’s quiet no reclaims space in a culture that treats bodies like public property; she transforms being wanted into choosing when and how to be known.
Loneliness hums under everything. Jack drowns in a sea of people and still can’t find a single safe face. Libby, newly empowered, crashes against the old fear that love will always happen somewhere she’s not. The party turns connection into a maze where every turn doubles back to isolation.
Symbols
- The Party: A labyrinth of noise and bodies that manifests Jack’s anxiety and the social order’s cruelty. It’s where personas thrive and people disappear.
- “More weight”: A nod to Giles Corey in The Crucible, transforming Jack’s final thought into defiance: if judgment presses down, he will not give the easy confession that makes the pain stop.
Key Quotes
“Why don’t you want me?”
Caroline’s question punctures her glossy exterior. It reframes her as a girl battling invisibility in a different way than Jack—she’s seen, but not chosen, and that absence of want terrifies her.
“I don’t want to be Pauline Potter. I don’t want him to be my first. I don’t want him to be my anything.”
Libby’s internal litany converts a cultural script—be grateful for attention—into resistance. Naming what she doesn’t want clears space for what she does: self-determined intimacy on her terms.
“I have a rare neurological disorder called prosopagnosia, which means I can’t recognize faces... the next time I see you it’ll be like I’ve never seen you before.”
Jack’s public confession is both surrender and courage. He trades the safety of performance for the risk of truth, and the crowd’s laughter reveals the cost of being honest in a hostile room.
“More weight.”
The echo of Giles Corey reframes Jack’s beating as a moral trial. Instead of begging for mercy, he braces—if shame is a stone, he won’t let it crush the last of his integrity.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
This sequence marks the novel’s emotional and narrative peak. Jack’s secret detonates in the worst possible arena, obliterating his social armor and forcing a reckoning with who he is without it. Libby’s choice—quiet, private, firm—offers a counterpoint: the power of self-definition amidst public spectacle.
By burning down the old order—Jack the effortless charmer, Libby the girl grateful to be wanted—the story makes room for honesty. What follows must rebuild trust and identity from truth rather than performance, setting the stage for reconciliation, accountability, and a more authentic connection.