Tessa and Hardin’s first meeting

Tessa and Hardin’s first meeting is presented through Hardin Scott’s later recollection, where a shabby-looking outfit, an awkward introduction, and a look he reads as judgment mark the beginning of an attraction he tries to disguise as irritation. The encounter matters less as an immediate romance than as the point at which Tessa begins to occupy Hardin’s thoughts despite his insistence that she annoys him.

First Encounter

Hardin remembers Tessa’s skirt dragging across the floor and her flat shoes making it hang awkwardly. When she gives her name, she looks down and speaks hesitantly; he finds the name odd. The small details make his first impression vivid, but they do not yet amount to affection: he recalls cringing at her outfit and paying little attention after the introduction.

Irritation and Attention

Hardin also remembers feeling judged by Tessa’s gray eyes. Her attention unsettles him, and he frames his response as annoyance. Yet the recollection itself complicates that account: he remembers her appearance, her manner, and the way she looked at him with unusual precision. His attention is already more persistent than his stated indifference suggests.

In a related early memory, Hardin watches Tessa approach while wondering why she dresses as she does. She rolls up the sleeves of her long-sleeved shirt, keeps her eyes on the sidewalk, and apologizes repeatedly after bumping into a boy and knocking a book from his hands. She bends to help him. Hardin notices her considerate response as carefully as her clothes, giving his growing interest an observation-based texture rather than a simple declaration of attraction.

From Encounter to Obsession

Looking back, Hardin explains that he began writing partly because he had run out of books to read and partly because Tessa had started to intrigue him. What began as irritation—she annoyed and angered him—developed into thinking about her more and more. He tells himself that this fixation belongs to a game, while recognizing that the explanation is false and that he is not ready to admit what he feels.

The recollection therefore shifts the meaning of the meeting: outward disdain and inward preoccupation coexist from the start. Hardin’s later account identifies Tessa as an obsession before he can name his attachment honestly, making their first encounter the opening of a pattern in which antagonism does not prevent emotional involvement but helps conceal it.