47 pages • 1 hour read
Laura NowlinIf Only I Had Told Her
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2, Chapters 1-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “Jack”
Part 2, Chapter 1 Summary
Alexis, Jack’s ex-girlfriend and Sylvie’s friend, tells Jack that Finn is dead, which Jack does not believe at first. When it sinks in, his mother holds him as he sobs. He goes to Finn’s house, where Autumn’s mother, Claire, comforts Jack. She asks him to stay with Autumn while she and Angelina go to the hospital. Jack tells Autumn that Finn loved her. Autumn tells Jack that he was a better friend to Finn than she was.
Part 2, Chapter 2 Summary
Alexis has told Jack that their friends are gathering at her house to commemorate Finn. When Jack arrives, there is a “sad party” going on. Jack’s detachment soon turns to horror and anger that these people who knew Finn so little are mourning or pretending to mourn him. The story going around is that Sylvie and Finn were happy, and Jack decides not to tell the truth about Finn cheating on Sylvie. Jack thinks, “Finn probably did one shitty thing” (175).
Part 2, Chapter 3 Summary
Jack stands with his and Finn’s teammates before the wake. They will all be pallbearers. Jack’s parents come to the memorial to support him, and Jack thinks about how odd it is that his parents are still together given that they do not like each other. He speculates that they are simply used to one another. Jack joins the extremely long line at the memorial, but an attendant pulls him out of line when Angelina asks for him. Angelina is standing next to both the coffin, which is closed, and a large photo of Finn at graduation. Angelina is happy to see Jack, and she ends up comforting him.
Part 2, Chapter 4 Summary
On the day of the funeral, Jack arrives early and finds Autumn with her head against the casket, which she is speaking to. Jack leaves when she says she loves Finn because he is not sure he should witness her confession. When Autumn finally leaves the room, she and Jack speak. She tells him that she will not attend the funeral, saying, “I’m letting Sylvie have the funeral” (186). She says that she will go check on Finn after the funeral is over.
Part 2, Chapter 5 Summary
Jack feels haunted by the image of Autumn against Finn’s coffin. He is acutely aware that Autumn is not at the funeral. He thinks, “Finn feels so alive with all these people here. It’s Autumn who is a ghost” (187). While serving as a pallbearer, Jack thinks about how Finn is close to him for the last time. His parents ask to skip the service at the graveside, so he goes with his coach to the cemetery. Jack sees Finn’s absent father and notes that he does not look up at all. As the casket is lowered, Jack wants it all to stop so that he can keep Finn. It does not, but Jack thinks he “will always know exactly where [Finn] is, because he’s never going to move again” (190).
Part 2, Chapter 6 Summary
Jack stays in the cemetery as people leave, telling his coach that he will get a ride home with someone else. Sylvie finds him. She has a scratch and a bruise but otherwise looks unharmed. However, she shares that she has dissociative amnesia, which means her brain is protecting her from the memories of the time around the car crash. The doctors told her she would remember when she was ready. They walk together as Sylvie tries to find the grave of Sara Teasdale, a poet. Sylvie asks where Autumn is, and Jack tells her that Autumn didn’t want to take the funeral from Sylvie. Sylvie offers to drive Jack home. He accepts, feeling bad leaving Finn in the rain but comforted that Autumn will visit later.
Part 2, Chapter 7 Summary
A week after the funeral, Jack’s older brother Charlie texts him: He is worried because their mother told him Jack is no longer running and has not packed for college. Jack eventually does go running, but he starts to get angry with Finn as he remembers their past runs together. He is not sure how the accident could have happened because Finn was a careful driver. He realizes that Sylvie should have had her seatbelt on and that Finn would not have started driving unless she was wearing it. Jack texts Sylvie and asks why her seatbelt was not on, and she says she doesn't know. Then she apologizes. He feels bad for implying she was at fault and responds that the accident was the rain’s fault.
Part 2, Chapter 8 Summary
Jack shows up at soccer practice even though he’s no longer on the team. He needs his coach to tell him what to do as a distraction. Coach seems to understand this unspoken need, and he makes an exception and lets Jack work out with the rest of the team. Afterward, Coach and Jack talk, and Coach asks if he will be back. Jack says he won’t, and Coach agrees that this might be best:
‘The only way out is through,’ [Coach] says, nodding. It’s something Coach has said a lot over the years, but it’s always been when one guy was surrounded and he needed to push his way out before the ball got stolen. But it makes sense here and now too (211).
Jack does not feel much better after he leaves, but he does have some hope again.
Part 2, Chapter 9 Summary
Angelina reaches out to Jack and asks him to clean out Finn’s car so that she can sell it. He holds Finn’s keychain, which was one of the last things that Finn ever touched. Jack remembers how excited Finn was to show him his new car, as well as many memories of them driving around during high school. Jack sees the hole that Sylvie made in the windshield and is baffled that she survived the accident. As Jack is collecting items, he finds a plastic sack containing candy and condoms. Jack does not give the sack to Angelina but keeps it: “It tethers him to the world, but it’s also a symbol of how chasing her killed him” (218). Finn feels extremely angry at Autumn, whom he blames for Finn’s death. Angelina gives Jack Finn’s CDs and discusses the grief of losing her child. She shares that she hopes to donate Finn’s things because she imagines that is what Finn would have wanted.
Part 2, Chapters 1-9 Analysis
These chapters explore the grief of losing a best friend, particularly at a young age, laying the groundwork for the novel’s exploration of The Transformative Power of Understanding and Forgiveness. Jack’s initial response to Finn’s death is emotional turmoil: He feels in denial and detached at first, then sad, and finally angry at Sylvie, Autumn, and even Finn. He is trying to process what he is going through while remembering his best friend and reconciling himself to his untimely death, but he lacks the life experience and emotional maturity to cope with his grief effectively, so he channels it into irrational anger.
Jack’s anger at Sylvie takes the form of questioning her about why she did not wear a seatbelt. Jack soon seems to realize that no answer would make him feel better and blames the accident on the rain. His willingness to “forgive” Sylvie (albeit for something that was not her fault) reflects his growing bond with her, foreshadowing their relationship. Sylvie and Jack—who were not previously friends—begin to connect at the funeral, where he even tries to comfort Sylvie, knowing many of the reasons that Finn loved Sylvie and trying to remind her of them.
Jack’s anger at Autumn is less easily assuaged and erupts in response to the sack of candy that he finds after cleaning out Finn’s car. He knows that Finn bought the candy for Autumn, and while he feels he cannot throw it out without disrespecting Finn’s feelings, he believes that if Finn had not pursued Autumn, he would still be alive. Jack therefore hangs on to the sack of candy, able neither to let it go nor to pass it along to its rightful owner. This “stuckness” symbolizes Jack during this portion of the text, as he does not know what his future holds without Finn in his life. Holding on to his anger at Autumn becomes a way for him to avoid confronting not only Finn’s death but also the question of who Jack is without him, developing the theme of how Loss of Identity Leads to Growth.
In the wake of Finn’s death, Jack struggles to interact with his peers, both because of their awkwardness around the subject of death and because most of them were not close to Finn, so Jack resents their show of grief. However, Jack is not as alone in his grief as he imagines. His parents—despite their dislike for one another—are united in their support and concern for Jack. His mother comforts him after Finn’s death, and both of them attend Finn’s memorial and funeral. Jack also reaches out to Angelina, intending to help his friend’s mother but ultimately realizing that she often consoles him instead of the other way around. The way she processes her grief helps Jack to see how he might process his own. Instead of keeping her son’s room and car exactly as they were, Angelina is going to give his things away to those in need. She is turning her pain into a conduit to help those around her, and in doing so she is keeping her son’s memory alive. She says, “I want his things out in the world, being used” (216).
