47 pages • 1 hour read
Abbi GlinesUntil Friday Night
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 15-31Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 15 Summary: “I Was a Liar. Fantastic.”
Maggie wakes up thinking about her phone conversation with West. She’s surprised how easy talking to him has been. She didn’t get upset as she expected when she shared details about her parents. She considers what it’d be like to talk to her family, too, but dismisses the thought. She continues thinking about her parents while preparing for school. She used to be close with her dad, but he was never good to her mom. After he killed her, he begged Maggie to forgive him. Maggie just sat in the corner screaming. She pushes the memories away.
Brady warns Maggie about West on their drive to school. He loves West but doesn’t think he’s good for Maggie because West uses girls. Brady doesn’t want Maggie to get hurt. Maggie listens, but secretly can’t wait to see West at school. When she sees him with another girl, Serena, at his locker, she avoids him and lies in a text about why he didn’t see her. She doesn’t know why she’s upset and tells herself not to get attached.
Chapter 16 Summary: “She Didn’t Belong to Me”
West looks for Maggie at school, realizing he’s getting attached. Raleigh’s rival Serena interrupts his thoughts to flirt with him. He dismisses Serena while telling himself to keep his relationship with Maggie friendly.
West asks Maggie if she’s upset when they run into each other. She doesn’t respond, but West stands close and speaks to her intimately.
Chapter 17 Summary: “West Was Showing Me I Wasn’t Broken”
Maggie’s heart flutters when she sees West at the lockers and in the cafeteria. She doesn’t know why she feels this way, unsure if it relates to their kiss. She doubts he likes her, because so many girls like him, too. To avoid West and his friends at lunch, Maggie sits outside in the heat with her book. West tries to get her to come inside, but she refuses.
Coralee talks to Maggie on the way home. Maggie silently compares Coralee to her last guardian, her godmother, Jorie. At the house, she realizes she’s getting adjusted to her new life. She wonders how things would’ve been different if she’d moved here right after her mom’s death. Her thoughts shift to West and his dad.
Chapter 18 Summary: “We Weren’t That Damn Funny”
West finds his mom struggling to make breakfast on Friday morning. When she starts crying, West can’t wait to see Maggie. He can’t breathe the whole way to school. Maggie sees him and comforts him before he says anything. However, she leaves when Serena approaches.
At lunch, West’s friends badger him about Serena. Brady discovers that West had sex with her and scoffs. He warns West about sleeping with Serena while getting close to Maggie, as Maggie “has been through her own hell” (134). West doesn’t think he’s doing anything wrong, because he’s certain Maggie doesn’t like him that way.
Chapter 19 Summary: “You’re Much Stronger Than You Think”
Maggie agrees to meet up with West before the pep rally, because he’s upset. He tells her he doesn’t think he can play tonight because he’s worried his dad will die during the game. Maggie encourages and comforts him. West invites her to meet his parents before the game, as his coach knows his situation and has let him skip the pep rally.
Chapter 20 Summary: “That’s My Boy”
West introduces Maggie to his mom, Olivia. He’s surprised when Maggie talks to her, too. Olivia and West’s dad, Jude, are instantly delighted by Maggie. Jude insists that West make Maggie his girlfriend because she’s special. West doesn’t say that they’re just friends.
Chapter 21 Summary: “It Takes Years Before They Wise Up”
Maggie attends West’s game with Boone. Maggie realizes West is missing Jude when she observes Boone congratulating Brady after the game. Boone warns her not to get too involved with West, as he looks preoccupied with Serena. Maggie wants to be with West but goes home with Boone.
Chapter 22 Summary: “She Will Always Be Just My Friend”
West leaves Serena to go home and be with his mom. He and Olivia discuss the game and Maggie. He doesn’t tell her he isn’t in a place “to have a relationship with someone like Maggie” (156). However, he defends Maggie from Serena when he sees them at the lockers on Monday. He breaks up with Serena and tells Maggie no one is allowed to bully her that way (158). He also assures Brady that he’s just friends with Maggie and wants to protect her.
Chapter 23 Summary: “No One Else Is Fun to Talk To”
Maggie spends another evening at West’s house with his parents. She starts sitting with West at lunch, too, because Serena is gone. However, Maggie’s friendship with West is still confusing. While showering one day, she replays their interactions and considers talking to her family. Afterwards, she runs into West in her room. He climbed in the window to see her. She considers telling him to leave, but she doesn’t.
Chapter 24 Summary: “You’re Insane If You Think I’d Make a Move on My Cousin”
West and Maggie fall asleep on Maggie’s bed. West comforts her when she has nightmares. Brady wakes West up when he finds him in Maggie’s bed. West assures him nothing happened and accuses Brady of disrespecting Maggie’s privacy by barging into her room.
Olivia calls the ambulance when Jude starts vomiting blood. West reminds Olivia that Jude needs them to be strong for him before they leave for the hospital (174).
Chapter 25 Summary: “I Need You Here”
Maggie receives a text from West about Jude’s hospitalization. She tells her family and they drive to the hospital. When Maggie sees West, she realizes she’s in love with him and wants to be there for him (179).
Chapter 26 Summary: “I’ll Be the Man You Raised Me to Be”
West and Maggie hold hands even after Maggie’s family and West’s teammates arrive at the hospital. Boone informed West’s friends what was happening. Maggie reminds West that he might lose his dad and encourages him to tell Jude what he wants to tell him before he dies. She never got to have a last conversation with her mom. In Jude’s room, West tells his dad how important he’s been to him and promises to take care of Olivia and himself when he’s gone.
Chapter 27 Summary: “I Won’t Have Regrets”
Maggie, her family, and West’s team sit in the waiting room while West and Olivia stay with Jude. Coralee tells Maggie that when her mom died, she, Boone, and Brady were there with her. She reminds Maggie that she’s family and can count on them. Maggie appreciates her words but doesn’t feel capable of speaking to Coralee for the first time that day (188).
West tells Maggie he spoke with Jude and thanks her for her support. Then he invites her into Jude’s room with his family.
Chapter 28 Summary: “They Hadn’t Left”
After West sends Maggie and the Higgenses home, Jude dies. West comforts Olivia as she cries. He feels tired and numb but tries to replay Maggie’s words in his mind to stay strong for his mom.
Chapter 29 Summary: “I Take It Back”
Maggie and West talk on the phone. Maggie apologizes for not being with him when Jude died. West isn’t upset because he had told her to leave. He then invites her to take a drive with him. She sneaks out and they head away from Lawton in the dark. She doesn’t know where they’re going, but realizes she’d go anywhere with West (202). She wishes he knew how she felt.
Maggie and West arrive at the bluffs overlooking Lawton. West explains the location’s significance to him and Jude. Then he tells Maggie he can’t make sense of how he feels for her. They talk about their kiss at the field party for the first time. West gets upset when Maggie reveals it was her first kiss. He’s sorry he was cruel to her when they first met and gives her the first kiss she deserves.
Chapter 30 Summary: “I Would Not Lose Her”
West silently berates himself for mistreating Maggie when they met. Kissing her again makes him desire her more. On the way home, they barely talk.
West takes the week off from school. He wants to call Maggie while helping Olivia plan Jude’s funeral but tells himself to focus on his mom instead. Meanwhile, he worries about losing Maggie.
Chapter 31 Summary: “I Wish I Had Been There”
Maggie doesn’t wear black to Jude’s funeral. She can’t focus on the service because she’s remembering her mom’s funeral and worrying about West.
That night, Brady asks Maggie why she won’t talk to her family when he’s seen her talking to West. Maggie writes a note explaining that West needs her. Brady seems to understand. He gives Maggie and West space when West arrives at her window, too.
Chapters 15-31 Analysis
This section further explores The Development of Teenage Romantic Relationships. Maggie and West are still getting to know one another. Their alternating first person accounts reveal gaps in their communication and a number of misunderstandings. For example, in Chapter 15, Maggie sees West looking at Serena in a way he never looks at her, like “he want[s] to eat her up” (111). Her avoidant behaviors in the following scenes reveal her hurt over the situation. However, in Chapter 16, West’s first person point of view reveals how emotionally attached he is to Maggie and how disinterested he is in Serena. Maggie and West haven’t yet learned how to navigate their complex feelings for each other because they’re still young and are still defining what romance means to them. In Chapter 15, Maggie insists that she’s “not going to get attached to West Ashby,” while in Chapter 16, West tells himself he isn’t “good enough for what Maggie need[s]” (114, 117). Maggie and West have feelings for one another, but their adolescence makes them fearful of owning and expressing these feelings. They start to truly become friends in Chapters 12 through 14 when West tells Brady that Maggie is helping him Coping with Grief and Trauma over his father. The more time they spend together thereafter, the more intimate they become. Their discussion of their trauma is the catalyst that helps them overcome their miscommunication and their awkward navigation of their relationship, creating a foundation that will later need to be expanded upon if the relationship is to have longevity.
Their close-knit Southern community further complicates their developing romance. Maggie fears being rejected by her classmates if she reveals her feelings, and West fears losing his best friend and his family if he reveals his. Therefore, Maggie and West’s often messy dynamic points to the novel’s parallel theme concerning The Role of Communication in Healing. In order to engage in a healthy, loving relationship, the characters must first learn to communicate effectively with one another. This struggle becomes the primary conflict in the wake of West’s father’s death, and West’s need for communication draws out Maggie’s voice in a time when they both need one another in order to heal and move forward.
Jude’s accelerating illness and death amplify the narrative tension as the tension between West and Maggie lessens, maintaining the conflict in the story. In Chapters 24-31, Jude’s illness consumes the narrative as it consumes the main characters’ minds. In Chapter 24, the image of West holding Maggie on the bed foreshadows the way West will soon need to rely on Maggie. When West comforts Maggie during her nightmares, he realizes that because she’s been his “rock and [his] source of peace” and is still “liv[ing] her hell alone,” he wants to be there for her (169). In Chapter 25, the protagonists’ roles reverse once more when West calls Maggie to the hospital. In these scenes, Maggie reassures, comforts, and encourages West as he watches his father die. Maggie knows that there’s nothing she can do to stop Jude from dying. However, she’s determined “to be there beside [West]” when it happens, because she wants him to have what she didn’t have when her mom died: “Someone who understood” (177). Therefore, the hospital scenes serve multiple purposes: They tighten Maggie and West’s bond, augment the narrative tension, and challenge West’s character. West is forced to confront who he is and what he wants in the wake of his father’s death. He’s still in pain throughout the following weeks but must learn to balance this pain with strength and support for his mom. Therefore, Jude’s passing doesn’t resolve the narrative conflict because it doesn’t resolve West’s and Maggie’s character arcs or relationship journey.
Maggie has retreated from others ever since her father killed her mother. When she meets West, she finds someone who’s in as much pain and need as she has been. Instead of dismissing West’s sorrow as lesser than her own, she uses her experience to authenticate West’s. For example, in Chapter 26, she tells West, “You’ll hurt. It’s the worst pain. But you’re strong, and you’ll make it through. You’ll have his memory. That won’t ever leave you” (181). Maggie’s trauma has given her wisdom and grace beyond her years. She’s still reeling from her own loss but doesn’t let this loss keep her from helping West. Therefore, her love proves self-sacrificing and pure. She doesn’t feel attached to West because he’s an attractive, popular football star. Rather, her love transcends West’s and her own circumstances. At the same time, Maggie’s willingness to do anything for West foreshadows coming conflicts in their relationship.
