The Night We Met
55 pages • 1-hour read
Abby JimenezThe Night We Met
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Symbols & Motifs
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, sexual violence, addiction, and substance use.
Car Rides
Car rides are an important motif in the novel and are the catalyst for its action. Two months before the main timeline, Larissa needed a ride home and had to choose whether she wanted her driver to be Mike or Chris. Larissa’s choice of driver influences the plot of The Night We Met and is something that comes up often when she considers her romantic choices.
The main timeline begins with the reversal of this when Mike is unable to give Larissa a ride and asks Chris to do so. During this brief car ride, Chris feels an initial connection to Larissa and instinctively tries to help her even though he hardly knows her. Throughout the novel, car rides shared by Chris and Larissa become the space where both of them feel the most comfortable. Separate from everyone else, Chris and Larissa can be themselves and tell each other anything. Larissa thinks, “Maybe heaven was just an infinite car ride with Chris. Him behind the wheel. Us leaving everyone and everything behind. Woofarine on my lap, Minnesota in the rearview. Starting over. Going back” (222).
Some of the most important moments in their relationship happen in Chris’s car, such as when he tells Larissa about his mother’s death and how he has secretly been doing things to help Larissa. When Chris shows up to take her to the cabin with Heather in the car, Larissa feels more betrayed by Chris than she does by Mike because he ruined the sanctity of their car rides. Chris knows this as well, which is why he brought Heather to create further separation between himself and Larissa, highlighting just how important these car rides are to both of them.
Acts of Service
Throughout the novel, Chris completes various acts of service for all his friends, but particularly Larissa. Some of these acts are apparent to Larissa, like the way he always checks her EpiPen to ensure that it hasn’t expired before they go somewhere to eat. However, many of these acts he keeps secret because Chris’s acts of service for Larissa represent how he shows his love for her, without ever saying it out loud.
Chris often influences the way Mike treats Larissa, telling him what gifts are best for her and giving him suggestions on how to be a better boyfriend. Chris does this partly because of his loyalty to Mike but also because he wonders if “she’d been on her own a long time. Used to doing everything herself. Maybe because people let her down” (155). Chris notices just how important acts of service are to Larissa, especially when she doesn’t have to ask for them, because they’re so rare.
When Chris finally tells Larissa about all the things he’s done in secret for her, she sees that all the things she loved about Mike were either done by Chris or done under his influence, eventually telling him, “I almost loved someone else simply because I saw you in them” (273). Through his acts of service, Larissa recognizes that Chris loves her, even though he won’t say as much in words.
The Cabin
Though the characters only visit Mike’s family’s cabin twice in the novel, the cabin quickly becomes a symbol for chaos and the world from which Larissa wants to escape. Chris took many childhood trips to Mike’s family’s cabin—even once getting attacked by a deer there and beginning his lifelong fear of the animal—so he has mixed feelings about the cabin. However, Larissa’s first experience there is jarring, especially after her calming car ride with Chris. The cabin finally opens Larissa’s eyes to Mike’s drinking and how he has trouble controlling himself, bringing all her concerns about their relationship to the forefront.
The cabin represents a place of danger for Larissa, in part because of the presence of nuts that Chris tries to protect her from. Chris sees the food with nuts that Mike leaves in the cabin pantry as a sign of his negligence and his alcohol addiction, things that become even more apparent on the second visit to the cabin in the novel. During this fateful visit, Mike’s negligence, drinking, and true character come out in full after Larissa breaks up with him. The almond-flour macarons that Mike gets Larissa for Christmas and ultimately forces on her with a nonconsensual kiss highlight the ways that Mike neither sees nor understands Larissa. In contrast, the things that Chris does for Larissa at the cabin show their deeper bond, framing Chris as a far better partner for Larissa than Mike.
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