52 pages • 1 hour read
Mercedes RonMy Fault
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 35-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 35 Summary: “Noah”
Content Warning: This section of the guide describes substance use, child abuse, and physical and emotional abuse.
Noah wakes up disoriented. She’s shocked to find Nick sleeping next to her and starts to panic when she realizes she’s in different clothes. Nick wakes up and tells her what happened, assuring her she’s safe. Noah is upset that Nick saw her scar and runs out of the room, slamming the door.
Shaking and crying, Noah gets into the shower. When she emerges, she finds another threatening letter on her bed. She convinces herself that telling Nick and Raffaella will only make things worse. She pulls herself together and goes to school.
After school, Raffaella isn’t there to pick her up, and Noah finds Ronnie waiting for her outside the building. He tells her that he’s been delivering the notes for someone else who is angry with her. Nick appears and demands that Ronnie leave Noah alone.
In the car, Noah reveals that Ronnie threatened her but doesn’t go into details. At home, Raffaella looks upset but insists she’s fine. Noah closes herself in her room and opens the next letter Ronnie gave her. This one is signed “P.A.P.A.” Seeing the signature, Noah is flooded with memories.
Every day when Noah was growing up, she’d return home to find that her dad had beaten Raffaella. Noah would hide from him in her dark room. A wave of nausea interrupts her thoughts. She doesn’t understand how her dad is getting to her when he’s been in prison for the past six years. Desperate for help, she calls Jenna.
Chapter 36 Summary: “Nick”
Nick worries about Noah, who still hasn’t emerged from her room. Over the following days, she becomes even more distant. One day, Nick finds her smoking marijuana with Jenna in her room and demands to know what’s going on. Noah insists she’s simply joining his world. Feeling helpless, Nick wishes he could protect her.
William and Raffaella spend the night at a hotel after a business meeting. Noah comes home late, drunk again, and Nick helps her into her room. She starts talking about her scar and her past, but when he asks why she’s so afraid, Noah pulls away, reminding him that he’s already hurt her enough.
Chapter 37 Summary: “Noah”
Noah doesn’t receive any more letters but can’t stop worrying about where her dad is. One day, she decides to go to the gang’s initiation party. Beforehand, Nick confronts her, insisting he wants to be with her, and she shouldn’t go to the party. They kiss but Noah pulls away, telling Nick she’s going anyway.
At the party, Noah is horrified by the things the gang is doing to its new members. Anxious and upset, she texts Nick for a ride home. Before she can leave, however, the other girls grab Noah and lock her in a closet. In the closet, Noah remembers the night she got her scar. Her father was drunk, but Raffaella wasn’t home, so he took his anger out on Noah.
Chapter 38 Summary: “Nick”
Nick runs around the party trying to find Noah. He breaks her out of the closet and holds her as she cries, begging him to stop the nightmares.
Nick drives Noah home. He takes her into her room and comforts her, telling her how much he cares about her and kissing her. Then he asks what happened, and she tells him her dad “tried to kill [her]” when she was 11 years old (332).
Chapter 39 Summary: “Noah”
Noah explains that her dad was abusive and had an alcohol use disorder. The night he attacked her, Noah broke her bedroom window to escape and cut her stomach on the glass. Afterward, she and Raffaella reported him for his abuse.
Nick insists it isn’t her fault and that she did the right thing. Noah starts crying again, revealing that she “might not be able to have kids” because of her injury (336). Nick assures her she’ll get everything she wants, and he’ll support her through it. They profess their love for each other, kiss, and have sex.
Chapter 40 Summary: “Nick”
In the morning, Nick reflects on his night with Noah. His phone rings, but he ignores it so he and Noah can be together. She wakes up, and they make breakfast. Noah takes Nick’s phone and deletes all the women’s numbers except Anne’s and Madison’s. Then Anne calls Noah to inform him that Madison is in the hospital. Noah insists on accompanying him to Las Vegas.
Chapter 41 Summary: “Noah”
At the hospital, Noah and Nick learn that Madison didn’t get her insulin shots. When Nick sees his mom, he confronts her for neglecting Madison. Afterward, they visit Madison. Noah falls in love with Madison and is moved by her relationship with Nick. Before they leave, Nick has another confrontation with his mom.
In her room alone that night, Noah reflects on everything that’s happened. She’s happy about being with Nick but still worried about her dad. The next morning, Noah again notices that Raffaella seems upset. However, Raffaella dismisses her concern.
Chapter 42 Summary: “Nick”
Nick drives to Leister Enterprises to see William. He asks him about Noah’s dad, demanding to know what’s going on. William reveals that her dad was recently paroled, and Raffaella is terrified but doesn’t want Noah to know. Before Nick leaves, William warns Nick to be careful about his relationship with Noah.
Nick picks up Noah from school. On the way home, Nick pulls over so they can have sex. They spend the rest of the day hanging out on the beach and talking.
Chapter 43 Summary: “Noah”
Noah gets ready to attend a party with Nick, reflecting on everything that’s happened between them. She decides to tell him about Ronnie and the letters that night. Before they leave, Nick reveals that he’s been looking for his own apartment so that they can spend more time together in private. Remembering the letters, Noah says she likes having him down the hall.
At the party, Noah and Nick get separated. Noah can’t find her phone and goes to find Nick. Outside, Ronnie and her dad grab her, tape her mouth, and kidnap her.
Chapter 44 Summary: “Nick”
Nick calls the police when he realizes Noah is missing, but they can’t file a report for 24 hours. Back at home, Nick tries to find Noah with his parents’ help. Then her dad calls and extorts William.
Chapter 45 Summary: “Noah”
Noah wakes up in her dad’s custody. Ronnie is there, too, taunting and threatening her. Her dad informs her he’s getting payback for what Noah did to him.
Chapter 46 Summary: “Nick”
Nick finds the birthday note and toy car Noah gave him and realizes how they can find her. There’s a tracking device on his Ferrari, which Ronnie is driving. William agrees to help trace the car.
Chapter 47 Summary: “Noah”
A noise downstairs startles Noah’s dad. He holds a gun to her head, insisting that if the police try arresting him, he’s going to kill her. The police burst into the room and shoot Noah’s dad. Nick, William, and Rafaella follow, and Nick races to Noah’s side and holds her. Raffaella hugs her, too, apologizing for everything.
Chapter 48 Summary: “Nick”
After the police shoot Noah’s dad, Nick rushes to Noah’s side and tells her he loves her. Then the paramedics arrive and insist that Noah go to the hospital.
Chapter 49 Summary: “Noah”
Noah wakes up in the hospital. Nick assures her that she’s safe, and Noah feels relieved. They kiss and profess their love again.
Epilogue Summary: “Nick, A Month Later”
Nick surprises Noah with his new condo. They kiss and have sex. When Nick wakes up with her in his arms, he realizes how much they’ve changed each other.
Chapter 35-Epilogue Analysis
In the novel’s final chapters, Nick and Noah overcome a series of conflicts that help them complete their relationship arc along the enemies to lovers trope, concluding the book’s exploration of The Relationship Between Love and Hate. Throughout much of the novel, Nick and Noah have been at odds. Even after they realize they have feelings for each other, Noah remains hesitant to fully commit to a relationship with Nick, and Nick remains unsure if he can engage in a monogamous arrangement. In these final chapters, however, they learn how to communicate more openly and honestly. Noah finally tells Nick the truth about her scar, revealing her deepest, most sensitive secret, and during these chapters, Nick and Noah discover that being emotionally vulnerable with one another grants room for them to grow their sexual and romantic relationship.
The characters also make progress in Overcoming Past Trauma, particularly Noah. In these chapters, her behavior spirals out of control as she tries to outrun her demons, but once she realizes that Nick wants to support and protect her, she decides to open up to him about her traumatic past. Nick shows how his character has developed as he starts to look out for Noah because he is “worried about the [recent] change[s] in her behavior” (317). He saves her from the closet at school, rescues her when she’s too drunk to care for herself, and keeps her from getting too high with her friends. These behaviors illustrate how Nick’s hatred for Noah has turned to love while simultaneously illustrating his growth and transformation. Nick has gone from only being able to express himself through violence and possessiveness to finding better ways to share his feelings. Furthermore, once Noah shares her traumatic memories with Nick, Nick can see and understand her better and support her more holistically.
Nick also helps Noah overcome her trauma by creating a safe space for her, literally, in his new condo. In the Epilogue, Nick surprises Noah when he brings her to his new home. This setting is symbolic of renewal and hope, offering them a private setting where they can grow their relationship “without parental supervision” (405). Like their short trip to the Bahamas, the apartment gives them refuge from their otherwise complicated circumstances and offers them the chance to build a future as an adult couple. The novel shows how love and care can lead the individual toward renewal and change.
By helping Noah overcome her past trauma, Nick also helps her complete her Search for Home and Belonging. Whereas Noah felt alienated when she first moved to California, she feels accepted, loved, and safe by the novel’s end, primarily because Nick has become emblematic of home for her. However, she has done the same for him, helping him grow and transform over the course of these final chapters. In earlier chapters, Nick behaved in violent, aggressive ways and acted selfishly, prioritizing his own needs above those of his family and friends. However, being with Noah has helped him to see that he wants to be better. She particularly teaches him how to love more truly and thus “rescue[s] [him] from the black hole [his] life had been before” they met (405). Nick’s reflections in the Epilogue underscore this notion and reiterate the novel’s central thesis that love can deliver the individual from even the most trying circumstances: “Our lives hadn’t been easy,” Nick thinks while lying beside Noah in bed, “and that was why we understood each other so well. At a critical moment, in the eye of the storm, we had been each other’s lifesaver, and that was not something easy to find” (405). Nick and Noah’s physical intimacy in this scene represents the emotional intimacy they’ve fostered throughout the novel, and Nick’s reflections illustrate how close they’ve become. Like Noah, Nick has found his home and belonging in their relationship. His thoughts reiterate how his character has changed and capture how enemies might become lovers and how love might overcome all evils.
