45 pages • 1-hour read
Bully
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Chapters 19-26Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, bullying, sexual violence, emotional abuse, child abuse, sexual content, and substance use.
Chapter 19 Summary
Tate runs into Jared on her way to class; when she falls backward, Jared helps her up, surprising and confusing her. Later, Ben asks Tate if her monologue was about Jared. Tate retorts that she doesn’t care about Jared, and Ben changes the subject, suggesting that they go to the Loop again. Tate agrees.
The Loop is a small track on a farm outside of town. When Tate and Ben arrive, Tate immediately spots K.C., who is there to support Jared while he races. For the first race, Tate and K.C. watch the proceedings along with Jared, who focuses on Tate the whole time. When the race ends, Jared and another boy, Roman, prepare for their turn at the track.
Chapter 20 Summary
Jared pulls up in his Mustang and prepares to race Roman. The race happens fast, and Tate finds herself both worrying for Jared and cheering him on. When it ends, the finish is too close to call, so the Racemaster suggests a rematch—but with the boys’ respective girlfriends driving instead. A girl approaches Jared, and he kisses her, bothering both K.C. and Tate. (In a later chapter, the girl’s name is revealed to be Piper.)
Chapter 21 Summary
K.C. refuses to do the driving, and Jared only trusts Tate with his car anyway. Tate also refuses at first, but when she thinks about the social repercussions of refusing to help Jared, she starts to change her mind. Jared whispers to Tate that he needs her, and Tate is moved by his sudden willingness to show his vulnerable side. She gets behind the wheel of his car, and Jared gets in on the passenger side. Tate immediately notices that the necklace hanging from Jared’s mirror is a piece that she made to honor her late mother. Tate had put the necklace on her mother’s grave, and now she realizes that Jared secretly took it.
As the race begins, Jared guides Tate through the course, though she does just fine on her own. She wins without question, and Jared thanks her for her help, calling her by her nickname “Tate” for the first time in years. Tate thanks Jared in return and then takes back her necklace.
Chapter 22 Summary
At the bonfire afterparty, Ben drinks too much, and Tate ends up without a ride home. Ben also starts saying strange things, such as when he claims to have won “the jackpot” in dating Tate. As she sees this unpleasant side to Ben, she no longer finds him interesting at all. When a boy named Nate approaches Tate and starts molesting her, refusing to stop when she says, “No,” Tate manages to hit him with a blast of pepper spray. Jared intervenes and starts punching Nate, but he goes too far and leaves the boy severely injured. Jared then insists on giving Tate a ride home. At first, she refuses, but because she knows that her options are limited, she reluctantly agrees.
Chapter 23 Summary
Jared starts speeding down the road with his headlights off, trying to scare Tate. She demands that he slow down and eventually punches him, forcing him to pull over. Tate gets out of the car, grabs Jared’s keys, and then threatens to throw them away unless he explains himself. She demands to know why he has bullied her for so long and then asks what she did to make him hate her. Jared explains that he never hated her even though he wanted to; he claims that he was always jealous of the attention she got from other boys. He also admits that when he returned from visiting his father that one particular summer, he was different, and he felt angry at the entire world. Jared approaches Tate and starts teasing her, putting his lips against her cheek. He doesn’t kiss her; instead, he leaves her desiring his touch. He then drives her home.
Chapter 24 Summary
Tate has an intense sexual dream in which she imagines Jared performing oral sex on her. When she awakens, she has an orgasm.
Later, Tate’s grandmother says her goodbyes and leaves, and as Tate catches up with K.C. via text, she learns that her friend has renewed a relationship with Liam.
At school on Monday, Madoc tries to ask Tate to the Homecoming Dance, begging her forgiveness for his previous behavior. Tate has no respect for Madoc and immediately suspects that she is being set up.
Chapter 25 Summary
Tate viciously replies that she has no interest in dating Madoc after everything he has done to her, but he continues to beg. Eventually, he yells out that he and Tate are expecting a child, hoping that this display will embarrass her into saying yes. Frustrated, Tate agrees to go to the dance with Madoc, but only because she wants to make Jared jealous.
Chapter 26 Summary
Tate goes to the lab after school to work on an experiment for a science project, planning to test how cotton reacts to various liquids. Jared is sent in to help and make sure that nothing goes wrong, and Tate is initially unhappy to see him. Jared starts reminding Tate of their past. He gets physically close to her, trying to convince her to forgive him. Tate allows herself to give in for a moment, and the two kiss, but she then pulls away again, not wanting Jared to feel as though he can get away with everything he has done to her. A girl comes in to talk to Jared and mentions that Madoc has a black eye. Jared reveals that he punched Madoc. Tate is shocked to realize how jealous Jared is.
Chapters 19-26 Analysis
When Jared reveals that his anger stems from his summer with his father, this rare, vulnerable admission simultaneously provides new insight into his cruel behavior and foreshadows a more detailed revelation about the precise events of that fateful visit, hinting at his own intimate knowledge of The Cyclical Nature of Abuse. This theme is further emphasized when he admits to hating everyone and feeling jealous of the attention that Tate receives from other boys. This conversation marks Jared as someone who has been deeply hurt and who therefore has learned to lash out at others in order to regain some form of power and control. Tate herself has already had a small taste of this toxic dynamic herself, given that her harsh words about Jared’s parents were fueled by her sudden desire to hurt him as much as he has hurt her.
As the two protagonists retaliate against each other and stumble over the wreckage of their former friendship, their struggles reflect the novel’s greater focus on The Challenge of Repairing Relationships, especially when the key element of trust has been utterly lost. Within this awkward push-pull dynamic, Tate and Jared’s youth and immaturity take center stage, as neither of them can decide whether to make amends or keep hurting each other. The result of this mutual ambivalence is a series of abusive, toxic encounters that are nonetheless laced with an unrequited longing on both sides. For example, during a night of drinking, Jared admits to needing Tate’s help to win the race, and this moment indicates his longing for the return of their old connection. Likewise, even though Tate is still deeply hurt, she feels compelled to assist him, and their near kiss during the car ride home signifies the ongoing tension between their past affection and present pain. Even as Tate resists the possibility of fully forgiving Jared, prioritizing her own safety, she longs for the closeness that they once shared. At this midpoint of the novel, the feasibility of a reconciliation is still entirely uncertain, and this problematic series of interactions therefore illustrates the complexities of mending damaged relationships and reconciling past wounds.
The issue of betrayed trust is further illustrated when Tate realizes that Jared secretly filched the necklace that she left on her mother’s grave. By claiming such a deeply personal keepsake for his own, Jared has essentially violated the trust that Tate once showed him when he helped her overcome the grief of her mother’s death. While Jared clearly sees the necklace as a symbol of their past friendship and the emotional ties that still bind them, Tate’s decision to take the necklace back after the race shows that she is determined to reclaim this piece of her history and identity, which Jared has wrongfully stolen.
In addition to employing physical objects as symbols, the author also utilizes key settings to convey the more intense emotions at work in the novel, and to this end, the competitive environment of Jared’s car race is designed to mirror the escalating tensions and unresolved issues that lie between him and Tate. Similarly, the bonfire scene further complicates matters, for although Ben objectifies Tate and reveals his misogynistic leanings, Jared’s intervention on Tate’s behalf is equally problematic, rife as it is with the hallmarks of toxic masculinity. Caught between these two avatars of male misbehavior, Tate is left with very little agency in this section of the novel, and she finds herself pushed in different directions by the whims of her volatile peers. As she grows furious over the various ways in which her boundaries have been violated in this single evening, she once again encounters The Harsh Lessons of Adolescence and must learn to set her own limits more forcefully.
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