Two-year period of distance

The Two-year period of distance is defined less by a clean break than by an unresolved bond: Tessa and Hardin stay apart, see each other rarely, and continue a long-distance, not-quite-defined relationship. For Tessa, the separation offers needed space but does not become happiness. Against that uneasy interval, her grief for Richard Young also changes shape, moving from the shock of finding his body toward memories she can hold with affection. The period’s decisive turn comes when Tessa and Hardin meet again at a wedding and begin to speak openly about the hurt between them.

The Time Jump and Its Conditions

The period is marked by a chapter transition: after a scene in which Hardin reflects on Tessa’s strength and on how she had been strong enough to walk away, the narrative advances two years. The jump makes distance itself part of the story. Rather than recounting each day apart, the later scenes reveal what the elapsed time has and has not changed through Tessa’s recollections and her account of the relationship.

At the wedding, Tessa says she has been okay with the long-distance, kind-of-relationship with Hardin. She misses him constantly, but also believes the space has been good for them. Her description distinguishes the practical relief of distance from emotional fulfillment: being okay means she can carry on, laugh, and smile, yet still feel far from joy. She remembers that Hardin showed her how much better life could feel, which makes the grayness of the intervening years especially clear.

The separation is not absolute. Tessa says she has seen Hardin only six times in the two years, and that each meeting has made her ache for him more. The small number gives the relationship’s distance a concrete measure, while her response shows that seeing him does not resolve the longing; it renews it. Their continued attachment persists without frequent contact or a settled account of what they are to each other.

Grief and the Changing Memory of Richard

Richard’s death supplies an earlier, defining grief in the period’s emotional background. Tessa finds him motionless on the bathroom floor and initially cannot focus on the body. Paramedics and police confirm that he is dead: he had injected heroin, had been alone for hours, and bags of heroin were in his jeans pocket. The needle, which falls from his arm when Tessa shakes him, leaves a sound she says continues to echo in her mind. She also remembers his hand jerking in hers and cannot decide whether the movement happened or whether her mind created a last false hope.

In the days after the discovery, Tessa struggles to think clearly and needs the familiar presence of Noah, who knew her before the upheavals of her adult life. She is also angry at Richard for dying. Zed tells her she is not wrong to feel anger, but Tessa insists that Richard knew the drugs were in the apartment and that taking them risked his life. She loved her father, yet needs to acknowledge her resentment rather than suppress it. Anger, she explains, distracts her from the emotional nothingness that otherwise threatens to overwhelm her.

Later, Tessa’s memory no longer returns only as pain. Hearing Hardin and Landon talk about cereal brings back Richard bickering with Hardin for eating it. She smiles at the recollection and can admire the humor and positivity she came to know in her father during their limited time together. The change does not erase the circumstances of his death or claim that grief is finished; it shows that memory can include warmth as well as the bathroom, the needle, and the shock of discovery.

Reunion and Accountability

At the wedding, Tessa and Hardin’s reunion makes the strain of the two years visible without presenting the interval as a simple cure. Tessa has missed him more than she lets on, while her exchanges with him and the people around them register a renewed closeness. She notices that he has put his lip ring back in, and they speak quietly as they walk down the aisle. The intimate observation sits beside her admission that the long-distance arrangement has left her functional but not fully content.

The turning point is Tessa’s apology. She tells Hardin that she hated that he did not try harder, but recognizes that she also pulled away and kept pushing him. She says her anger over the book and the attention she did not want governed her thinking, and that she allowed other people’s opinions to stand between her and forgiveness. She now regrets listening to those outside voices and says she cares about what the people she loves think of her. This confession makes the distance reciprocal: she does not cast Hardin as the only person responsible for their separation.

Hardin is taken aback by the change and admits he does not know what to say. When Tessa nervously asks whether he forgives her, he answers that he does, then asks whether she forgives him for everything, or nearly everything. The exchange does not supply a detailed account of every injury or instantly settle the future. Instead, it establishes mutual willingness to forgive as the necessary opening to repair.

Significance of the Interval

The two years test the difference between continued attachment and a life that feels complete. Tessa and Hardin do not stop mattering to one another, but rare meetings and constant missing leave Tessa with a relationship that is bearable rather than joyful. Her sense that distance has helped them coexists with her recognition that merely being okay is not the same as living fully.

The interval also resists a single, orderly account of healing. Tessa’s bereavement first appears through bodily shock, fractured recollection, and anger; later, an ordinary memory of cereal makes room for affectionate humor. In parallel, the distance between Tessa and Hardin does not resolve itself simply through time. Their movement toward reconciliation begins when Tessa names her own choices and Hardin responds with forgiveness. The period therefore marks neither forgetting nor a complete restoration, but a changed capacity to remember, acknowledge responsibility, and approach one another again.