51 pages • 1 hour read
Confess
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Part 2, Chapters 21-25Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2, Chapter 21 Summary: “Auburn”
Auburn understands that Owen is right, and Trey truly is dangerous. She didn’t know that the pills were Owen’s dad’s, but Owen tells her he was worried about his father losing his attorney’s license. She needs to end her relationship with Trey, but she’s also afraid of Lydia keeping her from AJ. She sees that Owen has sacrificed so much for his father and her, and he’s who she wants in AJ’s life. Trey texts her, and she says she will talk to him tomorrow.
Owen showers and Auburn goes to join him, but she’s insecure about her body since giving birth. She turns off the light, but he picks her up and turns it back on. He washes her hair and then he tells her she is beautiful. He kisses her until he reaches her cesarian scar and tells her it’s beautiful too. He says he’s falling in love with her, and then he picks her up and brings her to the bed. She narrates, “I don’t feel lost in him at all, because it’s the first time I’ve ever felt like someone truly found me” (273).
Owen drops her off at his apartment. Someone comes up behind her, and she leans into him until she realizes it’s Trey. He turns her around and shoves her against the refrigerator and asks her where Owen is. She refuses to answer, and he forces a kiss on her. Owen arrives and tells Trey to let Auburn go. Auburn worries because Trey tries to get Owen to hit him. Owen does hit him, though, and Trey releases Auburn. Owen tells her to call the police, and Trey laughs. “And who will they believe? The addict and the whore who got pregnant at fifteen? Or the cop?” (276). Trey’s true self is revealed, and he adds that he planted contraband throughout Owen’s apartment when he broke in. Trey calls to say he’s bringing a subject in for custody for attacking a police officer. Owen tells Auburn to let him arrest Trey arrest him for assault because he’ll get less time than for whatever Trey planted in his apartment. She cries, and as they leave, she knows she’s not going to allow Owen to spend another day in jail for things he didn’t do.
Part 2, Chapter 22 Summary: “Owen”
Owen knows he and Auburn are independently trying to figure out what to do on the way to the station. She says to Trey, “I’ll never love you like I loved Adam” (280), and Trey pulls over and grabs her face. Owen wishes he could do something to keep her safe and reassured. Their eyes meet. Trey tells her to say that she and Owen were in a fight, and when Trey arrived, Owen attacked him. He says it’s to keep AJ safe, but Owen can see in her eyes she’s not on board. When he’s taken from the car, she puts her fist to her heart.
Part 2, Chapter 23 Summary: “Auburn”
Auburn didn’t answer one question at the station. Trey offered to drive her home, but she said no. She waits for a cab outside the precinct. Trey tells her they’ll have to talk soon enough, but she doesn’t respond. When the cab arrives, she tells the driver to take her to Callahan Gentry’s home address.
She tells Cal he can help his son by helping her. He agrees. After more than 24 hours without sleep, she sits with Cal as Lydia and Trey enter. Cal presents them with the custody papers he’s drawn up for Auburn. Lydia laughs and asks Auburn why she’s doing this, and she responds by pressing play on a recording on her phone. The recording is from the night before, of Auburn telling Trey she can’t forget that he assaulted her and framed Owen. She asks Trey if she should keep playing the tape. He kicks over a chair and curses.
Auburn tells Lydia she’ll stay in Dallas, and Lydia can have visitation with AJ as long as Trey isn’t living with her. She tells Lydia that if she signs the custody papers and Trey drops charges against Owen, she won’t ruin Trey’s career. Lydia cries as she signs the papers, but Auburn knows it’s nothing compared to the tears she’s shed herself. Auburn thanks Cal, and he says he should be thanking her.
Part 2, Chapter 24 Summary: “Owen”
Owen’s father arrives at the precinct and tells him all charges have been dropped. Owen is worried most about Auburn, but Cal says she’s fine. He says about Auburn, “She’s something else, isn’t she?” (290), and Owen sees Cal has a light back in his eyes. Cal apologizes to him for his behavior, and he makes it clear he’s going to rehab. Owen knows that they’ll be okay.
Owen goes to Auburn’s apartment, and AJ answers the door. Auburn comes out and tells AJ to feed his fish again. As soon as AJ goes, she runs into Owen’s arms, and they kiss. He wants to tell her the things he hasn’t, such as how he knows her and why the painting she has is important to him too, but he knows that “this confession isn’t mine to share. The confession belongs to Adam” (293).
Part 2, Chapter 25 Summary: “Five Years Earlier, ‘Owen’”
In a flashback, Owen is outside his father’s hospital room. He watches as Lydia gives Adam’s art supplies to the nurse and asks her to discard them. A girl is sad and asks the nurse to give them to someone instead. Owen waits until the girl leaves and then asks the nurse if he can take the paints and brushes. He paints for hours, the first painting he’s ever made. When he finishes it, he brings it to Adam. The painting is of two hands reaching for each other. It's representative of the love he hears between Auburn and Adam. Owen’s losses sometimes make him wonder if he wants to keep living, and it’s the possibility that he might be loved the way Auburn loves Adam that makes him want to stay. Adam tells Owen the girl’s name–Auburn Mason Reed–and he learns they have the same middle name. It’s Adam who suggests that’s fate and that perhaps she gets more than one fate. Adam asks Owen to send the painting to Auburn and to include his note: “I’ll love you forever. Even when I can’t” (306), his final words to her.
Part 2, Chapters 21-25 Analysis
The book’s final section resolves the climax that began two chapters earlier and resolves the book’s conflicts in the falling action. Trey’s violence and deception continue until Auburn devises a plan to expose him. Auburn and Owen finally defeat their relationship’s antagonist, Trey, resolving the love triangle. While Auburn seriously considered being in a permanent relationship with him even though she wasn’t in love with him so she could spend more time with AJ, his selfishness was revealed as dangerous and manipulative. Auburn experiences an anagnorisis, or epiphany, which can often occur amid the climax of a story. After the sexual assault and Owen’s discussion with her about it, she finally understands that Trey is a malevolent person, and she doesn’t want him in her or AJ’s life. Her clarity is the hinge on which everything now turns. Nothing stops her now from exposing Trey’s lies. She is no longer afraid of him, and it’s her courage that leads to Trey’s downfall and her decision to be with Owen. The resolution of the love triangle also establishes that The Difference between Selfish and Selfless Love is that only selfless love can persevere; relationships pursued for selfish reasons are doomed from the start.
Auburn and Owen do wind up in a relationship at the end, but not without letting go of their past traumas. Their connection through shared traumas led to their newfound abilities to face down their demons–Owen’s guilt and self-sacrifices for his father’s addiction and Auburn’s resignation to Lydia and Trey’s selfish desires. Owen’s earlier decision to stop enabling his father’s addiction led to Callahan getting the help he needed. The light Owen sees in Callahan’s eyes shows that he, too, was inspired by Auburn and how she went after what she wanted without fear.
All secrets are revealed except for one, which is the story of how Owen knows Auburn. By saving that secret for the end of the story, the reader feels the weight of Owen’s connection to Auburn; she is the reason he is an artist, his ethos that Art Heals, and even his use of confessions to inspire his art. The flashback chapter suggests that Owen and Auburn are truly fated to be together; while they only connected indirectly before, they need each other to become their true selves. The reader knows if they hadn’t reconnected, they might both still be stuck in their past traumas. With this, Hoover employs another romance trope; Owen and Auburn are soulmates, and they passed the tests thrown their way, leading to a happy ending.
While the book often highlights the Dangers of Keeping Secrets, Owen’s decision to keep this story from Auburn is actually a selfless one. The secret honors her love for Adam, allowing her to enjoy her memories of her time with her first love, the father of her child, without imposing himself or new information on her. Even secrets can be kept undisclosed in the service of selfless love. Like the confessions that inspire Owen’s art, secrets can be harmless or even provide fruitful new ground so long as they are not rooted in malice, harm, or shame.
Finally, the story of what happened five years ago when they were both in the hospital completes the bookending that Hoover included at the beginning of the novel, where Auburn shared her experience of the same time in the same place. Dramatic writing often includes mirror images at the opening and closing of the story, with the final image revealing how much has changed. Rather than reveal what’s changed, Owen’s story at the hospital five years ago is a reader-only plot reveal. It’s the one secret that Owen has hinted at to the reader, and the reader has been eager to learn what it is. In some ways, it’s Owen’s final confession to the reader.
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By Colleen Hoover
