Mistakes We Never Made

“Finn and I have had our chances, and they all imploded spectacularly again and again.”

One of the major themes of this novel is Letting Go of the Past. At this early stage, Emma views her past with Finn as one riddled with errors. She does not want to get together with him because she feels like she will only get hurt, just like she has before. This reference to chances establishes the genre trope of second-chance romance.

“The last few years at work have seemed like compromise after compromise.”

Emma is at a point in her life where she wants to be able to design according to her vision. Her current position does not allow her to this degree of creative freedom, and over the course of her weekend, she will gather the courage to start her own firm. This way, she’ll no longer have to compromise.

“In Texas, we measure our lives in hours of driving.”

Cars are a recurring motif in Emma’s life. She learned about them from her father, and because Texas is such a large state, she was frequently in the car driving between Dallas and other major cities. As such, she’s also used to spending a lot of time in the car, preparing her for this impromptu road trip with Finn.

“But it turns out there are some things you can’t leave behind no matter how much horsepower you have.”

Emma associates cars with her father and thinks that, at the end of the day, the positive memories she links with him and cars don’t make up for the hurt he caused in her life. She also knows that no matter how far she has gotten from the past, she still has not yet fully dealt with her feelings about his absence. Here, she uses horsepower as a metaphor for the power to escape the past.

“Some mistakes do define you. Some mistakes leave you irrevocably changed.”

Emma has been hurt too many times by others’ mistakes. The repetition of the phrase “some mistakes” here emphasizes the determining role that past mistakes play in her present life. Her father’s departure and Finn’s letting her down define her respective relationships with them, and she is unwilling to accept that people can change. She eventually sees that Finn is someone she can rely on and accepts that perhaps people should not be defined by their mistakes.

“Deflect. Banter. Jab.”

When Emma and Finn first set out on the road, Emma does not want to have a real conversation with him. She tries to maintain her image of him as a flirty, undependable bachelor, poking fun at him. This is her way of masking the hurt he has caused her, and it is her defense against getting hurt again. These three one-word sentence fragments echo the language of fencing or boxing, suggesting that Emma sees her friendship with Finn as a kind of combat in which her primary concern is to protect herself.

“A masterpiece […] doesn’t have to be flawless. It just has to make you feel something, even years later. Something you go back to over and over, and you’re still surprised and delighted by it.”

In this quote, Finn is talking about movies. However, his assertion is also a metaphor for his relationship with Emma. It has not been perfect; however, they each keep returning to it over and over again.

“I think about Finn noticing how I keep the family on track, and how he seems to understand what a burden that can sometimes be. I know it’s not my job to fix everything.”

Emma is grateful that Finn not only notices how much she cares for her family but also seems to understand the toll it takes on her personally. While Emma’s friends appreciate her for what she does, Emma does not always receive care in return.

“Everyone else is here for themselves. Isn’t there something that you want just for you?”

Finn prompts Emma to think about herself, which she rarely does. Her view of the world centers on taking care of others, and his question pushes her to think of herself. Her wish for someone to take care of her foreshadows that she and Finn will eventually get together partly on the basis of his showing her that he can care for her.

“I suddenly had the feeling that I knew absolutely nothing—nothing about the world, about what had happened years ago, nothing about Finn, or this night, or what was possible.”

This quote again uses repetition to emphasize a point—in this case that Emma’s certainties are beginning to melt away. Everything that happened the day of the junior prom is unknown to Emma even at the end of the novel. She eventually learns that Finn wasn’t just blowing her off, but what happened to Sybil that day also affects their friendship. For someone who tries to be in control of situations all the time, Emma struggles with uncertainty, and it helps her to accept that Finn never meant to hurt her.

“He’s not going to push me, which I appreciate. But I find that I actually want to tell him.”

Emma discusses her struggles at work and her dreams of opening her own firm with Finn. She often pretends that work is fine and that she’s got everything under control when she interacts with others, and so wanting to tell Finn the truth demonstrates how much she likes working together with him. However, she also appreciates that he is willing to give her the space to decide what and how much she wants to confide in him.

“It was strange hearing that Sybil was worried about me, and I wasn’t sure how to respond. I was usually the one keeping everyone else on track, fretting about their missed doctor’s appointments or questionable dating choices. What did Sybil have to be worried about me over?”

Emma focuses so much on caring for others that she does not always recognize that she gets in her own way. Realizing that Sybil worries about her too helps her to realize that her best friend loves and cares for her no matter what.

“Despite how late it is, and the weakness of the coffee I’ve only had a few sips of, I feel like I’ve drunk half a dozen Red Bulls, and the floating feeling from the elevator is back. But now it’s ten times more intense because this is—or could be—real.”

Emma finally lets herself start to fall for Finn Hughes while she’s in Las Vegas. At first, she was closed off to the idea of a relationship with Finn, but their conversations and time together show her that they could work as a couple. She just needs to move on from the past. Sensory details that previously had physiological causes—the floating feeling from the elevator, the alertness from caffeine—are now rooted in emotion instead.

“What I really think is that you don’t let yourself trust me; you don’t trust most people, in fact. You’re afraid of anything—or anyone—that you can’t control.”

Finn knows Emma better than she realizes. This is because they’ve known each other for so long that he has seen her at many different points in her life. She never wants to make a mistake, and Finn knows that she can’t reckon with uncertainty.

“I have to make this promise to myself. I can’t let this become just another mistake on our list.”

Both Finn and Emma get in the way of their own happiness. Emma does not want to get hurt again, and Finn is afraid that he will disappoint her yet again. Both of them over the course of the novel come to realize that the risk is worth the reward. The novel makes repeated references to mistakes, echoing the title, and the list of mistakes becomes a structuring device.

“The only mistake I’ve made this trip is feeling like I could trust you. Especially after what happened the last time we saw each other.”

Emma has a hard time letting herself fall in love with Finn, and whenever she gets close, she pushes him away again. Her comment also sets up the next flashback in which she recounts what happened between them at Katie Dalton’s wedding, a fight she references several times throughout the novel.

“I felt that familiar Finn feeling: safe, but with a crackle of excitement, like walking a tightrope, but knowing there’s a net to catch you.”

Part of the reason that Finn and Emma work is that their relationship is a risk in that they don’t know if it will work out. However, Emma can also look back at the many times that Finn has caught her when she’s fallen. She uses the simile of the tightrope to describe the sensation of being with Finn: simultaneously a feeling of danger and of protection.

“Besides, it’s nice to have an excuse to take care of you for once. It’s always the other way around.”

Sybil knows Emma better than anyone. She’s always there in the way that Emma needs, and Emma’s weekend journey to find her best friend also reminds her of the many ways that she has supported Emma throughout their friendship.

“He could have loved and been loved, but he was so determined he knew what was best for everyone that he ended up completely alone.”

Emma sees herself in her father. She knows that she too could easily try too hard to force her vision of the world on those around her, and she does not want to do that. She wants to love and be loved. Talking with him grants her some peace because it helps her to see what she does not want to become.

“All you could do is tell him where you stand and what your feelings are. At least then you know that you’ve done everything you could. After that, it’s up to him to make the next move.”

Finn’s words to Emma remind her that having a hard discussion with her father is more than enough. It’s up to him to realize the mistake that he’s made in leaving.

“Like if I just keep moving, keep working, keep achieving, then maybe I can outrun what happened.”

Emma has never fully reckoned with what her father’s leaving did to her emotionally. She wanted to gain as much temporal and emotional distance from it as possible to show that it didn’t matter that she’d been left. She’d turned out all the better for it.

“He’s not that teenage guy who left me standing with a corsage all those years ago. The Finn Hughes I know today is the guy who rubs my back and grounds me through an anxiety attack.”

One of the major themes of this novel is The Importance of Allowing Relationships to Change, and in this quote, Emma reveals her acceptance of Finn as different from the boy who’s let her down so many times. She finally accepts that he has grown just as she has.

“It’s a love note to the friend who has always come back, who has never left me, not really. Who has, even in her wildest or flightiest moments, shown what loyalty really is.”

Emma characterizes Sybil as someone who flees in tense situations, but this comment shows her appreciating that Sybil has always returned, even if she needs to process her feelings alone at first. She is so grateful for her friend and for the stability that she has provided in Emma’s life. The weekend road trip not only makes Emma fall in love with Finn again, but it also makes her appreciate Sybil more too.