Yours Truly

“I felt unmoored, like I was being tossed around on some choppy sea and all the captains of the passing boats were sneering at me instead of throwing me a lifeline.”

In this quote Jacob explains what it feels like to have an anxiety disorder, which is an important part of his character. It also introduces the theme of Anxiety Within Relationships, as this moment explores how Jacob felt when Amy forced him into a social situation he was uncomfortable with.

“There was no reason for this to be happening to Benny. It wasn’t God’s plan, and it wasn’t going to make him stronger. And you know what? Maybe it could be worse. But who cares? That was the most unhelpful comment of all. Benny had every right to hate what was happening to him. He had every right to grieve the life and body he’d lost and to be angry about it, no matter how many countless other scenarios sucked slightly more than this one.”

Briana reacts with anger when Jacob suggests Benny could live for years on dialysis because it’s not fair that Benny has lost the freedom to be a normal 27-year-old man. This is before Briana knows about Jacob’s anxiety or the fact that his own mother had renal failure and a kidney transplant. This reaction, however, underscores the love Briana has for her brother and shows how his situation has created stress in her life as well. This conversation with Briana will inspire Jacob to volunteer to be tested as a match for Benny.

“Benny was like my child. I was eight year older and had practically raised him while Mom worked and went to nursing school.”

Briana’s reflections about Benny not only show the closeness of their relationship but also reveal a formative aspect of her childhood. Helping to raise her brother has influenced Briana’s view of men and her choice to have children. Later in the novel, Briana will become pregnant and question Jacob’s love based on her father’s actions and her failed marriage.

“I felt like everyone was watching me on the way out, like they all knew I’d been given a letter and they knew what was waiting for me in those pages.

Maybe they did.”

The theme of Anxiety Within Relationships comes up again when Jacob receives a response from his letter to Briana and immediately jumps to the conclusion that it is unkind. Jacob response shows that he knows writing a letter is old-fashioned and unconventional, and potentially fodder for ridicule. At the same time, this moment shows how ingrained in his personality his anxiety is and how the smallest things can set it off. Later in the plot, things related to Briana lose this power, showing how his relationship with her has helped him manage his anxiety.

“They should have an app for that. A facial recognition one that could detect and delete photos of your ex. One click and your whole device is wiped clean. And it should delete all their comments too, so you don’t have to see things like ‘hot mama!’ on a picture of you in a bathing suit at your best friend’s house on a day when I now knew for a fact he was at home having sex with Kelly, in our bed.”

Even while she’s having a good time looking through Jacob’s Instagram, Briana’s past haunts her as she thinks about the photos she once posted of herself with Nick. Her thoughts take her back to Nick’s betrayal as she explores a potential relationship with Jacob. Nick’s betrayal will continue to darken Briana’s relationship with Jacob as she struggles to put her past trauma to rest.

“‘Ask her to be your date to the wedding stuff.’

‘They think she’s my girlfriend. A date isn’t going to do it.’

He shrugged again. ‘Well, ask her to be your girlfriend.’

I stared at him incredulously.

‘Not for real. Ask her to help you out.’”

The idea of a fake relationship, the main romantic trope of the novel, comes from Jacob’s friend Zander. Jacob initially balks at the idea, showing his concern for Briana, but his decision to ask her to do it suggests that he has already begun considering a romantic relationship with her.

“I wasn’t even nice to him in the beginning. I was a total nightmare. And he’d have to have been working on this even back then because it takes weeks for the labs and the tissue samples and the medical and mental health evaluations, and I knew they took that long because I’d done them myself once when I was trying to see if I was a match.”

Briana’s reaction to the news that Jacob is Benny’s kidney donor is complicated, but she shows a deep gratitude for his selflessness. This revelation also points to a depth of Jacob’s character that she hadn’t known before. This moment removes a common romantic trope in which the main characters keep secrets from one another, giving it a fresh twist.

“I was going to do anything he needed to make this fake girlfriend thing work. I was about to put on an Oscar worthy performance the likes of which Hollywood has never seen. I was so committed I would tattoo his name across my boob. Pose for fake engagement photos if he wanted them. Hell, I’d fake a damn wedding.”

Briana’s commitment to the fake relationship grows as the novel progresses. In addition to attending wedding events, she encourages Jacob to spend time with her and tell their human resources department they are dating. Briana is trying not to be caught lying, but she’s also inadvertently creating an intimacy between herself and Jacob that eventually leads to romantic feelings.

“I loved Amy. But I was not in love with her. I saw that now. I was completely and utterly over it. I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t resentful. This hug was as platonic as if I was hugging my sister—and I was.”

Jacob’s realization that he is no longer in love with Amy is important to the plot because it allows him to confront his feelings for Briana. This moment is a pivotal point in the plot, as it opens Jacob up to a relationship with Briana. However, at the same time, Briana overhears parts of the argument and takes from it the opposite of what Jacob has concluded. This moment creates conflict in Jacob and Briana’s relationship because Jacob fails to share his true feelings with Briana.

“I sighed. ‘I have to go take a picture of the driveway,’ I mumbled, getting up.

‘The driveway?’ she asked.

‘He needs to know where to park. It’s a thing.’”

Although Briana is annoyed with Jacob, she goes out of her way to provide him with the information he needs to feel comfortable in a new situation. This passage is an example of the theme Love Shows Up because Briana is there for Jacob no matter how she feels about him in the moment.

“The truest sacrifices are the ones no one knows anything about.”

Jacob makes this comment about how far he would go to care for Briana. This quote also connects to Briana’s inability to believe that any man is truly trustworthy, an issue that threatens her relationship with Jacob throughout the novel. When Jacob says things like this, she wants to believe him, but she finds it difficult because of her past.

“She was drunk. Everyone loves everyone when they’re drunk But even though she didn’t mean it the way I did, I almost said it back. But her breath had gone steady and I knew she was asleep.

It didn’t matter.

Nothing we talked about tonight would feel real tomorrow anyway. At least not for her. But I got to hold her. That was real. That was at least something.”

In romance novels, there are often misunderstandings or misconceptions. Because Briana and Jacob are in a fake relationship, when they start to develop real emotion for each other, they deny the possibility that the other feels the same way. Here, Briana confesses her love for Jacob, but because she is drunk, he doesn’t believe her.

“It occurred to me that this is what true compatibility must feel like. Easy. Being with Jacob was easy in a way that I never knew existed. And it made me realize how much of my marriage had been forced.”

Nick becomes a foil for Jacob, showing that Briana’s marriage failed for reasons beyond Nick’s affair with Kelly. While the affair was the catalyst for the divorce and the source of most of Briana’s pain, she is beginning to see that that isn’t the only problem they had. This realization is a crucial part of her healing process.

“She began pulling a crumpled rubber wad and a black pump out of her duffle bag. My smile faded. I thought she would sleep in my room. In my bed. With me.”

The air mattress Briana brings when she moves into Jacob’s home becomes a symbolic barrier between them. Jimenez even uses the word “rubber” to describe it, a word that was once synonymous with “condom,” a barrier in sexual intimacy. It is clear that Jacob is ready to take their relationship to the next level, but Briana continues to have reservations, which keeps them separated.

“He stood there just long enough for it to be weird. Then he left.

I looked back at Levi.

‘Is that your boyfriend?’ he asked.

I laugh a little. ‘Yes. It’s a long story.’

He nodded. ‘He seemed kinda jealous.’

Now I really laughed. ‘He’s not, trust me.’

God, I wish he were.”

This exchange between Briana and Levi establishes two things. First, it makes clear that there is no possibility of a romantic relationship between Levi and Briana because they are both involved with other people. Second, it shows that even when Jacob is jealous, Briana doesn’t see it because she is still convinced he is in love with Amy. This shows how deep Briana’s distrust of herself runs, as she struggles to believe what is right in front of her.

“I wished I could lean down and kiss her. That’s what a real boyfriend would do here. Just a quick peck and a smile.

Instead I said, ‘You too.’

Instead. Everything I wanted to do with her, I did something else instead.”

Jimenez uses repetition to stress how Jacob and Briana feel about each other. At this point, Jacob is done pretending and growing frustrated with his behavior around Briana, but he continues to follow her rules of engagement because he respects her feelings. However, his change in tone at this point shows how desperate he is getting.

“My nerves were frayed. By the time we pulled up to my parents’ house, the gnawing in the pit of my stomach was starting to make me feel sick. I was getting overheated and sweaty. I kept wiping my palms on my pants. I had to check three times that I’d put the truck in park. I couldn’t remember.”

Jimenez gives another description of Jacob’s anxiety. This time, the symptoms are a little more intense and physical than previously in the book. Whereas previous descriptions of his anxiety were based on situational problems, this time his anxiety comes from an emotional one. Jacob is jealous of Briana’s conversation with Levi, and it leads to a panic attack.

“I was right here. I was right here and I was in love with him and he didn’t care because he couldn’t even see me past her. I had fallen completely and utterly in love with him and he had stayed completely and utterly in love with someone else.”

Briana’s confession is inside her head. She continues to hide her true feelings because she doesn’t trust herself enough to see that his feelings have changed. This is part of the classic misdirection that is often a part of romance novels of all tropes, and it plays on Briana’s distrust of men because of her father and her husband’s choice to leave her.

“He has social anxiety. You expect him to come to some loud-ass limo party with your verbal-diarrhea husbands, and you wonder why he didn’t suddenly turn into some social butterfly? He should get credit for even trying. You have no idea how hard he has to work to just fucking show up. And he does it because that’s what love does—it shows up. He’s shown up for Amy and his brother since the second this started. He has been a goddamn saint through all of this.”

Briana defends Jacob to one of Amy’s bridesmaids in another example of the theme Love Shows Up. Briana’s defense of Jacob shows the depth of both her feelings for him and her understanding of his character. Now that she has admitted to herself how deeply her feelings for Jacob run, her words take on a deeper significance.

“It was the Tower of Terror at Disney World on my twenty-fifth birthday. The elevator doors opening to show you something awful and confusing before plummeting you to your death.

It was Nick and Kelly.”

Jacob and Briana’s encounter with Nick and Kelly after Amy and Jeremiah’s wedding is another pivotal moment in the plot because it reminds Briana of her failed relationship and helps her realize that she’s pregnant. When this reality comes crashing down on Briana, her first impulse is to push Jacob away because she returns to the conviction that no man can be trusted.

“I was head-over-heels in love—again. I was living in a house that wasn’t mine and could be taken from me—again. I was vulnerable and exposed and blindly trusting someone.

And I was pregnant. Again.”

Seeing Nick pushes Briana to compare her past relationship to her present one. Although Jacob and Nick do not compare, Briana wants to believe they do because it’s easier to end the relationship now than it is to trust Jacob and risk that he might hurt her someday. This moment encapsulates the true obstacle that Jacob must overcome: Briana’s desire to protect herself from heartbreak.

“Come on, Jacob. It’s my job to know when it isn’t real. And also when it is.”

Earlier in the book, Jacob and Briana feared that Joy would see through their fake relationship. This led to Briana and Jacob spending more time together, visiting each other’s homes, and even moving in together. However, Joy reveals at the end of the novel that she knew all along. Ironically, if Briana and Jacob hadn’t been trying so hard to trick Joy, they might not have fallen in love.

“‘It’s really happening, Jacob.’

I closed my eyes. ‘How do I know?’

‘Because love shows up. And here I am.’”

In this quote, Briana finally lets go of her reservations and decides to go all in on her relationship with Jacob. Her words reflect the advice his mother gave him that Love Shows Up. She accepts that Jacob has been showing up for her all along and will continue to do so. Furthermore, Briana is now giving herself credit for showing up as well.