Things We Never Got Over

“I’m in a strange place in a stranger situation. And there’s a little girl in there who needs someone. Unfortunately that someone is me.”

The developing relationship between Waylay and Naomi underscores the emotional evolution of both characters. Waylay masks the trauma of her upbringing with a show of precocious panache, while Naomi pretends to be a competent guardian, a role for which she has no preparation or experience. They need each other to grow.

“You’ve spent a lot of time looking out for yourself, but that’s my job now. I am not about to leave you alone.”

Naomi here is being not-Tina, the cleaner of her sister’s messes. In this case, she pledges her allegiance to her niece and promises to be everything that her “evil” twin is not. Although the sentiment is admirable, Naomi is still defining herself by what her sister is not.

“And for the first time, I felt a niggle of guilt that Nash and I no longer had each other’s backs. But it was just another example of how relationships didn’t last forever.”

The low-boil animosity between brothers Knox and Nash, which is only gradually revealed to be about money, emerges as a counterpoint narrative to Naomi’s and Knox’s relationship. As Naomi will later tell Knox, both brothers are being ridiculous. Knox draws his perception of relationships being doomed to fail from this single, flawed example.

“After hitting forty, I’d noticed an alarming ambivalence when it came to the hunt. Laziness most likely. The hunt, the narrowing of the field, flirtation…seemed like a lot of work for a night or two.”

Knox, before he meets Naomi, has abandoned what he terms the “hunt.” The term indicates his patronizing and misogynistic perception of women, who he believes will flock to him because of his chiseled good looks and his lottery millions. Before he meets Naomi, he seems to deserve a life of pointless, one-night stands.

“It felt like I was being dragged into his gravity against my will. It felt like it was just the two of us sharing some kind of secret. I knew what I’d be thinking about and hating myself for when I lay down in bed tonight.”

The novel anatomizes the I-hate-myself-for-loving-you experience of falling in love. Here, Naomi puzzles why she feels pulled to a man she can barely stand to talk with. And yet, she understands that she will masturbate to her fantasy about the bearded, muscled, tattooed Knox.

“You’re the one who has to live your life. Don’t apologize to other people for the decisions you make for yourself.”

At critical moments, friend and confidant Stef offers Naomi the critical, course-correcting advice she needs as she simultaneously navigates toward and away from Knox. Stef advises that it is time for Naomi to live her own life and accept responsibility for her decisions without blaming her sister.

“There’s nothing our girl loves more than getting her hands on a disaster and making it shine.”

This insight from Stef defines Naomi’s character and her life up to the moment she sees Knox for the first time. Naomi has spent her life being what others want her to be and making sure her sister does as little damage as possible to the family. She has grown accustomed to her role as a fixer and has almost made that life enough for her.

“I had a whole list of reasons to be pissed off at the world and most of them revolved around Naomi Witt. Every conversation with her ended in me having a headache or a hard-on.”

Knox wrestles with the same emotional crises as Naomi. For all the rhetorical fencing in which the two indulge, Knox cannot stop thinking of the woman with the daisy in her hair. Despite his commitment to avoiding relationships, Naomi has an impact on him. This is suggested by the two ways he handles thinking of Naomi: excessive drinking and lonely masturbation.

“I lost myself in [the kiss]. Every thought tumbled out of my head until I was nothing but feeling. His mouth was hard and demanding, just like the man. I softened under him. Welcoming him.”

As the relationship deepens between Naomi and Knox, Naomi comes to discover what physical love can do when it is driven by emotional intensity. As Knox grinds up against her, his kiss hard and unyielding, Naomi understands exactly what her abandoned fiancé could not do for her: turn her body into pure feeling.

“Wow, wow, wow.”

Completely inappropriate, this is the remark Naomi’s mother makes when she first sees a naked Knox come down for breakfast. Naomi’s parents surprise her the morning after she and Knox make passionate love. The remark sets the tone for Naomi’s emotional redemption.

“I felt born again. Alive. Hollowed out and refilled to overflowing with something I didn’t recognize. Something that scared the living hell out of me.”

After sex, Naomi struggles to find words to express what their sexual intensity feels like and what this kind of orgasm does to her. Naomi suggests the metaphor of redemption or being born again. Under Knox’s powerful guidance, she is emptied, suggesting she can overcome her past, and begin to be herself.

“But imagine what it was like seeing the parents you love so much get hurt over and over again. I had to be the good one. I didn’t have a choice.”

This is the thing that Naomi struggles to get over. Because of Tina and her rebel-without-a-clue adolescent behavior, Naomi sacrificed exploring her own identity. This passage deflates any idea that this was heroic. Heroism implies a choice, and Naomi had no choice but to balance out her sister. Her parents suffered enough.

“Naomi, you’ve got a lot of people who care about you. Maybe it’s time you let them take care instead of you doing all the caretaking yourself.”

The ever-wise Stef tells Naomi exactly what she needs to hear. Her life of being not-Tina left her with few friends. She arrives in Knockemout alone and even resists the idea of making new friends. But the bar, the coffee shop, and the library each gift her with friends. She needs to embrace her community and not be alone.

“Fuck this place, Naomi. Fuck your little temper tantrum. I’m willing to forgive you.”

Every romance needs a villain, and the insensitive, loutish (and here drunk) ex-fiancé Warner fills the bill. Warner’s presence reveals what Naomi has hinted at: his temper and his willingness to resort to violence to get his way. This moment exposes the necessity and the wisdom of Naomi’s runaway bride escapade.

“That stupid golden glow was back and threatening to burst out of my chest…He was as protective of [Waylay] as he was of me. I was a goner.”

Knox reveals his heroic compassion as Naomi watches him cut the hair of the residents as the shelter for unhoused individuals. For Naomi, this sense of community caring, along with his caring for Waylay and his prowess in bed, makes her fall in love.

“I said from the beginning I don’t do strings.”

Just when Naomi feels the surety of her love, Knox, without explanation, simply and cruelly tells her their relationship is over on principle. His principle: He does not get involved in relationships.

“‘Resilience isn’t a bad thing to pass on. Get out there and have some fun. Even if it doesn’t feel fun right away. Fake it till you make it.’” I had a feeling I’d be faking it for a very long time.”

Stef’s well-intentioned advice is what Naomi, just dumped for no reason, needs to hear but the last thing she is prepared to do. Getting over Knox, she understands, will take some time. This one, she knows, will hurt for a very long time.

“That you’re scared down to your fucking bones that you’ll fall hard and end up like Dad…That you won’t be able to hold up under the bad.”

Knox’s brother exposes exactly why Knox so adamantly resists relationships. His fear of getting involved stems from watching his father develop an alcohol addiction when he was unable to handle the perfect storm of misfortune and bad luck: losing his job, losing the family home, and then losing his wife.

“‘You don’t have to be such an asshole all the time.’ ‘Born that way.’ ‘Bullshit what you show to the world is a choice. And right now you’re making the stupid choice.’”

Finally, Knox is told that being insensitive, loutish, and deliberately rough-around-the edges is a choice. Lucien assures him that he can change how he is perceived by changing how he acts. He tells him to begin with Naomi.

“Everything is wrong or broken or a mess. I used to have a plan. I used to have it all together.”

Naomi is at her emotional low point. She lost Knox, and her sister has been spotted in town so she now fears she might not get guardianship of Waylay. She has lost her direction and purpose and is back to being alone.

“That’s in my blood…They couldn’t deal. They lost themselves, and everything around them spiraled out of control. I came from that. I can’t afford to give up like that…some days it feels like the whole damn town needs something from me.”

This is Knox’s moment of honest revelation. He is afraid of sharing his traumatic past and his fears over what it means to open himself up to the vulnerability and fear that go with falling in love. Like Naomi, he believes too many people need him or something he can provide because of his lottery windfall.

“I fucking love you…You don’t get to say it back yet.”

Knox returns to Naomi. After Naomi was nearly choked to death by Tina’s boyfriend, Knox affirms his love loudly and without apology. In a twist, he tells Naomi she cannot say the words back to him until enough time has passed; he wants to make up for the time he made Naomi suffer when he broke off their relationship.

“I’m going to remember how fucking lucky I am, every single day. And I’m gonna do my best to be the best for you.”

In this declaration, Knox defines the mission statement of romances: I am not perfect, love is imperfect, and the people who fall in love are manifestly imperfect. Still, their love is enough.