New Year

New Year is a recurring calendar threshold in the novel rather than a clean break from what came before. Its clearest scenes set the return of university life in January against a later New Year’s Eve shared by Shelby and Jungkook. In one, the year begins under snow and anxiety; in the other, the couple greet its turning with affection. Together, these moments make the holiday a measure not of sudden renewal but of how their closeness continues through time.

Calendar Frame and Narrative Structure

The new-year sequence at Central Washington University in Ellensburg is dated Wednesday, January 8, at 9:10 a.m. The later holiday passage is set at the Barnum family home on Thursday, December 31, at 10:21, and is headed New Year. The dates establish two distinct views of the calendar’s threshold: the academic year’s ordinary demands resuming in January, and Shelby and Jungkook’s private observance at the year’s end. Rather than treating New Year as a single isolated celebration, the narrative returns to it as a point from which to register both daily strain and changes in intimacy.

The January scene begins with the broad rhythms of the season: snow remains, classes resume, and students differ over whether they welcome the return or wish the break had lasted longer. That general description quickly narrows to Shelby’s particular unease. The later December scene is more closely focused on the couple and their private life. This shift in emphasis gives the calendar marker two registers: public time, measured by semesters and classes, and shared time, expressed through gestures and words between partners.

January: Routine Resumes, Anxiety Remains

On January 8, Shelby looks out at the winter landscape, pensive and reluctant. Her photography professor, Mrs. Clark, has asked her and Jungkook to come to her usual classroom after their courses. Shelby cannot tell whether the summons concerns their photography project, dissatisfaction with what they submitted, or a demand that they redo it before summer make-up work. The uncertainty turns an ordinary academic request into an immediate source of dread.

Her anxiety takes physical form: it catches in her throat, and her right leg begins to move on its own. Jungkook places his left hand on her leg and gently strokes it. The gesture, described as familiar between them, calms her almost instantly, although her heart does not settle. The moment holds relief and continuing distress together: his touch helps, but it does not make the uncertainty disappear. New Year therefore does not function as a promise that Shelby will leave her difficulties behind. Classes return, a new stretch of ordinary life begins, and her anxiety is still present within it.

December 31: A Shared Greeting

The later passage opens at the Barnum family home on December 31. Shelby wakes to sunlight, notices that Jungkook is no longer beside her, and hears him singing in the bathroom. Through the partly open door, she watches him shampoo and rinse his hair while he continues singing in Korean. The scene’s domestic quiet and Shelby’s delighted response establish the intimacy surrounding this New Year’s Eve before the narrative moves into their sexual encounter.

Afterward, the couple lie beside one another, exhausted and at ease. Jungkook wishes her a happy New Year, calling her his angel; Shelby answers with the same greeting and calls him her love as she strokes his right cheek. The exchange is brief, but its reciprocal tenderness matters: neither greeting stands alone, and each meets the other’s affection with affection of its own. Where the January scene makes time felt through institutional routine and anxious anticipation, this one marks the turning of the year through a private moment of physical closeness and mutual address.

Continuity Rather Than Erasure

Read together, the scenes resist the idea that a new year automatically remakes the people entering it. In January, Shelby still needs help grounding herself when uncertainty overwhelms her; Jungkook’s familiar touch offers immediate comfort, not a cure. At the year’s end, their relationship is expressed through ease, sexual intimacy, and the shared exchange of New Year wishes. The contrast registers a development in their closeness without suggesting that vulnerability has vanished.

New Year thus organizes two forms of continuation. The university calendar restarts its demands, while the couple carry their established habits of care into a private celebration. The most significant change is relational: by the later scene, their affection appears in mutual, unguarded gestures and words. The holiday’s meaning lies less in a clean slate than in the fact that the year turns and Shelby and Jungkook meet that turn together.