In This Girl, the conflict between personal desire and moral responsibility drives the central narrative, as Will must choose between his profound feelings for Lake and his moral responsibility as a teacher and guardian. Will’s internal struggle highlights the challenges of finding one’s personal desires and moral obligations in conflict. Hoover employs the forbidden love trope—a classic tenet of the romance genre in which two lovers are divided by external circumstances, conflict, or social norms—to define the stakes of this tension for Will and Lake. Will’s position as a teacher makes it impossible for him to pursue a romance with Lake and keep his job. His responsibility to Caulder makes it necessary for him to keep his job. In this way, Hoover compounds the obstacles facing the couple, forcing them to suppress their attraction to each other—creating a tension that drives the plot forward.

The discovery that Lake is his student instigates a moral crisis for Will, forcing him to choose between his professional ethics and responsibility to Caulder and his burgeoning love for Lake. From the moment Will realizes that Lake is his student, his professional judgment and behavior are immediately compromised. When another student makes a suggestive comment about Lake, Will reacts in anger and throws the student out of the class. Will’s internal thoughts position this outburst as an unusual loss of composure: “I cringe at my own behavior. I’ve never lost my temper in a classroom before […] I’m disappointed in myself. Disappointed I lost my temper […] disappointed that I now have this huge dilemma facing me.” (76, 78). By ending their relationship and insisting that Lake transfer out of his class, Will initially chooses responsibility. He consciously sacrifices his own happiness to prevent disaster for them both, demonstrating a maturity that places the well-being of others before his own desires.

Will and Lake’s inability to resist their feelings for each other despite the narrative stakes positions their connection as exceptional—soulmates destined to be together despite the odds stacked against them. Although Will decides to cut off all contact with Lake, he immediately wavers in his resolve and considers quitting his job to pursue a relationship with her. He tells himself, “Of course, the answer is obviously to do the right thing. The responsible thing. I mean, we went on one date. Who would quit a job over one date? This shouldn’t be this hard. Why is this so hard?” (81). Will and Lake’s attempts to stay apart increase their desire for each other rather than quelling it. “The fact that she sits two feet from me in class makes my mind feel like a damn hurricane. It takes everything in me not to look at her during third period” (94). Because both Will and Lake acknowledge and endorse the moral and ethical reasons they shouldn’t be together, the novel attributes their inability to abide by these principles to the overwhelming force of their love at first sight.

The novel resolves this conflict through Will’s re-evaluation of his priorities. Initially, Will sees his responsibilities and his love for Lake as competing priorities that force her into third place behind Caulder and his career. This perspective causes both of them significant pain. His final poem, “Better than third,” marks a shift in his understanding. He realizes that life does not demand a rigid hierarchy of affection and duty—rather, life “wants you to grab all the organized, the alphabetized, the chronological, the sequenced. It wants you to mix it all together” (237). This epiphany frames his love for Lake as an essential part of his life rather than a threat to his responsibilities. Through this arc, the novel proposes that balancing desire and duty is not about choosing one over the other, but about integrating them into a whole and meaningful life. However, this perspective risks framing a romantic relationship between a teacher and a student, which is inherently defined by an imbalance of powers that raises ethical questions of consent, as a simple deviation from social convention—“the organized” and “the alphabetized.”

The framing device of Will and Lake’s honeymoon implicitly validates their love story despite the moral ambiguity of the stories Will is relating about their past. As Will describes a moment from the first few weeks Lake was his student, he says, “Layken Cooper, I love you. I’ve loved you since the second I laid eyes on you, and I haven’t stopped loving you for a second since” (113). By predicating the story on the couple’s happy ending, Hoover asks the reader to root for Will and Lake’s happy ending despite the questionable power dynamics and ethical concerns inherent in their relationship.