Theodore Finch and Gabe Romero

The relationship between Theodore Finch and Gabe Romero is a sustained antagonism, rooted in their middle-school history and renewed through public taunts, physical bullying, and competing interpretations of a violent incident. Gabe’s provocations make Finch’s anger bodily and immediate; Finch’s effort to restrain himself, in turn, gives the rivalry a second dimension, as he tries to remain present rather than let anger dictate what happens next.

Background and Pattern

Finch describes himself and Gabe as sworn enemies since middle school. Their hostility is therefore not a misunderstanding arising from a single exchange but an established pattern that follows them into high school. In one encounter outside class, Gabe blocks Finch’s way with Amanda Monk waiting behind him and Joe Wyatt and Ryan Cross nearby. The group setting matters: Gabe confronts Finch in front of other students, and Finch’s response unfolds under their gaze.

Gabe warns Finch not to look at him again. Finch denies doing so and answers with an insult aimed instead at Mr. Black, turning the accusation into a deliberately irreverent joke. Gabe then calls Finch a slur. The exchange moves quickly from a dispute over a glance to a public attack on Finch’s identity, with Gabe controlling the physical space and Finch using sarcasm to answer without backing down.

Physical Intimidation and Anger

Gabe escalates from words to action by knocking the books out of Finch’s hands. He then tells Finch to pick them up and shoulders him hard as he walks past. The sequence is pointedly ordinary in its form: Finch recognizes it as a familiar schoolyard bullying routine. Its familiarity does not make it harmless. The shove instead triggers an intense surge of anger that Finch describes through the image of a grenade going off inside him, its toxic smoke spreading through his chest.

That reaction recalls the previous year, when Finch picked up a desk and threw it in Mr. Geary’s room. Finch explicitly distinguishes what happened from the story Gabe apparently tells: the desk went toward the chalkboard, not toward Gabe. This distinction does not erase the danger of Finch’s anger or the fact that a desk was thrown; it shows that the old episode has become part of their rivalry, with its meaning contested between them. Finch remembers the action as an outburst directed at the room, while Gabe later presents himself as someone nearly struck by it.

Restraint and the Effort to Stay Present

During the confrontation outside class, Finch imagines a far more violent retaliation: slamming Gabe’s head into a locker and pulling out his heart. He does not act on that fantasy. Instead, he counts to sixty, forces a smile, and reminds himself that he will not get detention or be expelled. His effort is not simply to avoid an immediate punishment; he is trying to be good, quiet, and still, and to keep control of himself while he is in what he calls his Awake state.

Finch also tries to reassure Mr. Black, who watches from the doorway, that the situation is under control. That performance of calm sits against the physical signs Finch registers in himself: itching palms, burning skin, and pumping blood. He has promised himself that the school year will be different and believes that staying ahead of events—including his own reactions—may help him remain fully present. Gabe’s harassment thus becomes a direct test of Finch’s intention to stay awake and here. Restraint in this scene is a deliberate action under pressure, not evidence that the hostility has been resolved.

The Chalkboard Incident and Its Afterlife

In a later exchange, Gabe opens a beer and says Finch should have been allowed to jump, adding that Finch nearly took his head off the previous year. He is referring to the chalkboard incident. The statement reveals the harshness of Gabe’s view of Finch: he invokes a past crisis not with concern but as a reason Finch’s life should have been allowed to end. His version also centers his own claimed danger, consistent with the implication that the thrown desk nearly hit him.

Placed beside Finch’s account, Gabe’s remark shows how the same episode serves as evidence for opposing stories. Finch remembers where he threw the desk and presents the incident as a flash of anger redirected at a chalkboard; Gabe recalls it as a near miss and uses it to justify contempt. The available scenes do not show either boy revising his position or making peace. Instead, the old incident remains active in their present hostility: a classroom outburst has become a grievance Gabe can revive, while Finch’s effort to control his next response unfolds in the shadow of the earlier one.