“You never wanted to be anyone’s ‘girlfriend’ and now you’re somebody’s wife,” Tom says bitterly, to which Summer tries to argue, “It just happened. I woke up one day and I knew.”

“Knew what?” Tom asks, exasperated.

Summer delivers the final blow: “What I was never sure of with you.”

I’d heard the dialogue so many times that I had practically memorized it and yet, each time, I found myself receiving it differently. When I was 13, my heart went out to Tom who promptly complained about how much it sucked to realize that “destiny, soulmates, [and] true love” was a sham. When I was 16, I respected Summer for her genuine repentance despite having little to no fault; she kept her frankness up to the very end, acknowledging Tom’s pain without granting him any sense of false hope.

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