Chasing Love

Charlie Mason’s fraught relationship with Lex Edwards generates conflict between competing versions of herself. Charlie and Lex (formerly Alex) fell in love and had an affair when Charlie was 18 and Lex was 25. Nine years later, Lex resurfaces in Charlie’s life—reigniting the heartbreak she thought she’d overcome when Lex abandoned her almost a decade prior. Charlie has kept her past with Lex hidden. He is “the skeleton in the closet that’s happy to remain in hibernation” (59). Just thinking about Lex causes Charlie internal unrest. She avoids talking about him with her new fiancé, Julian Baker, because she fears that “bring[ing] up the past” might compromise her idyllic romance in the present (59). However, the longer Charlie ignores her complex feelings for Lex, the more her emotional wounds fester.

Lex’s reappearance in Charlie’s life in New York unleashes memories of the girl she once was and the life she once thought she’d have with Lex. When she starts running into him around the city, Charlie repeatedly tells herself to “[f]orget the past” and ignore her longing for and frustrations with Lex (132). However, Charlie’s unresolved history with Lex keeps her from focusing on the present.