Someone Like You

“[Life] is an ugly, awful place to not have a best friend.”

The loving relationship between Halley and Scarlett is central to Someone Like You. Though both Scarlett and Halley experience romantic relationships throughout the text, their relationship with each other proves to be more important and lasting, highlighting The Importance of Friendship.

“When I pictured myself, it was always like just an outline in a coloring book, with the inside not yet completed. All the standard features were there. But the colors, the zigzags and plaids, the bits and pieces that made up me, Halley, weren’t yet in place. Scarlett’s vibrant reds and golds helped some, but I was still waiting.”

This quote lends important insight into how Halley sees herself at the beginning of the text: unfinished and waiting for life events to happen to her so that she will be “filled in” with the colors and patterns that make an individual unique. Halley believes that Scarlett lends some color to her personality, but Halley feels that she is only borrowing these colors and seeks to form more of an identity on her own.

“All the things she’d said to me for years. Only now they all seemed loaded with something else, something that fell between us on the table, blocking any further conversation.”

As Halley gets older, her easy relationship with her mother begins to hit a rough patch, speaking to the theme of Navigating Family Dynamics in Adolescence. As Halley wants to begin exploring her identity, separating herself from her mother, the changes in Halley begin to affect the way she and Julia communicate.

“I knew I had to keep him to myself, as I’d slowly begun to keep everything. We had secrets now, truths and half-truths, that kept her always at an arm’s length, behind a closed door, miles away.”

As Halley’s relationship with Macon develops, she inherently understands that her mother would disapprove and therefore adds the relationship to the growing list of secrets between her and Julia. The secrets Halley keeps from her mother take on a physical presence, and Halley uses them as objects to build up a wall between her and Julia.

“Someone like you. Any guy would be damn lucky to have you, Halley, and you know it. You’re beautiful and smart and loyal and funny. Elizabeth Gunderson and Ginny are just stupid girls with loud voices. That’s it. You’re special.”

Halley struggles with self-confidence and a belief that she is half finished or unworthy, specifically when it comes to romantic relationships. This belief causes her to develop feelings for Macon even though there are concerning factors about his behavior from the beginning of the text. In this quote, Scarlett tries to encourage Halley to see herself the way Scarlett sees her. While Halley finds herself lacking, Scarlett recasts her as special, indicating that Scarlett does not see Halley as someone needing fixing or who should settle for less than she deserves.

“As he leaned in to kiss me, I thought of nothing but how unbelievable it was that this was all happening, in my side yard, the most familiar of places.”

The first time Macon kisses Halley, in the yard outside her bedroom, it is a turning point in Halley’s life and relationships: with herself, her mother, Scarlett, and Macon. This is not Halley’s first kiss, but it is the kiss that forces her across an invisible line and onto a new path that she will follow for much of the text as her relationship with Macon progresses. Halley points out that this kiss occurs in her yard, which is the “most familiar of places,” and yet the kiss causes Halley to feel herself entering uncharted territory and a new phase of life.

“But then I lay down there on that cot and stared at the ceiling, just waiting for them to come do it, I realized I couldn’t. I mean, sure, nothing is going to be normal for me anymore. But how normal has my life ever been? Growing up with Marion sure wasn’t, losing Michael wasn’t. Nothing ever has been.”

Scarlett decides to go through with her pregnancy, explaining to Halley that while having a baby will fundamentally change her life, it almost seems fitting given the other circumstances of her life to this point. Circumstances outside her control have shaped much of Scarlett’s life, forging her into someone strong and self-reliant, and now Scarlett views her pregnancy as an opportunity to seize control of her own life, even if it will come with significant challenges.

“I felt it for the first time. That exhilaration, the whooshing feeling of being on the edge and holding, the world spinning madly around me. And I kissed him back hard, letting loose that girl from the early summer and the Grand Canyon. At that moment, suspended and free-falling, I could feel her leaving me.”

This is an important symbolic moment in Halley’s journey: She imagines herself letting go of the girl from the photo of her and her family at the Grand Canyon as she kisses Macon on top of the dam. In letting go of this former version of herself, Halley makes the decision to step into this new version of herself, one whose identity she has yet to define. Halley feels a sense of power and agency in this decision as she makes the conscious choice to step into this new identity.

“It was like those stop-action films of flowers blooming that we watched in Biology. Every frame something is happening, something little that would be missed in real time […] To the naked eye, it’s just suddenly blooming, colors today where there was none before. But in real time, it’s always building, working to show itself, to become.”

Halley describes the subtle changes in Scarlett as her pregnancy progresses. Through the comparison of Scarlett to a stop-action film of a blooming flower, Halley evokes the sense of unfolding and wonder that she feels about Scarlett’s pregnancy. Although the pregnancy is far from over at this point in the text, the idea of Scarlett having a baby and becoming a mother becomes more real to Halley.

“I sat there and looked at my mother, at the ease in her face as she told me how I felt, what I thought, everything. Like I was a puzzle, one she’d created, and she knew the solution every time. If she couldn’t keep me close to her, she’d force me to be where she could always find me.”

Halley grows increasingly frustrated with her mother’s assumption that she knows everything in Halley’s mind. This quote highlights the challenges of Navigating Family Dynamics in Adolescence: In comparing herself to a puzzle that her mother thinks she can figure out each time because she created it, Halley emphasizes that she feels like her mother is trying to control her and hold on tighter to her even as Halley grows more distant.

“All the way home I stared out the window, watching the houses slip past and thinking back to the Grand Canyon, vast and uncrossable, like so many things were now.”

The Grand Canyon is an important symbol in the text, as it represents both the last time Halley felt truly connected to her parents and the now ever-widening chasm she feels between herself and them. They spent the week together making memories, and then, upon returning home, Halley began pursuing interests separate from her parents, forging her own adolescent identity. Halley thinks back to the Grand Canyon and describes it as “vast an uncrossable,” which takes on symbolic meaning in the context of her current relationship with her mother. There is a “canyon” between Halley and Julia at this point in the text: Neither is willing to try and cross the vast space between them in order to understand the other’s perspective.

“I thought of that sketched black outline, the colors inside just beginning to get filled in. The girl I’d been, the girl I was. I told myself the changes had come fast and furious these last few months, and one more wasn’t that big of a deal. But each time I thought of Scarlett, always Scarlett, and that new color, that particular shade, which I wasn’t ready to take on yet.”

Halley revisits the metaphor of herself as an empty outline as her identity and relationship with Macon develops. Scarlett’s pregnancy looms large in Halley’s mind as she tries to decide whether or not she is ready to take on that “particular shade,” meaning having sex for the first time. This quote illustrates that as eager as Halley is to develop her identity, she still has boundaries and lines that she is unwilling to cross. She retains a sense of self in this way, despite her otherwise developing identity.

“I mean, I loved Michael so much, but—I didn’t know him that well. Just for a summer, you know. A lot could have happened this fall. I’ll never know.”

Scarlett explains the lasting impact that her short relationship with Michael will have on the rest of her life. Scarlett’s experiences have shaped her outlook on life: As much as she loved Michael in the time they were together, she is realistic in admitting that she does not know whether they would have stayed together past the summer. Ultimately, Scarlett offers a realistic perspective to Halley that momentary decisions can have a lasting impact, which she will keep in mind as she navigates her relationship with Macon.

“At first, when she opened her eyes and saw me there was no flicker of recognition, no instant understanding that I was who I was, and that scared me. As if I had already changed into another girl, another Halley, features and voice and manners all shifting to make me unrecognizable.”

Grandma Halley’s memory is failing, and yet when she does not immediately recognize Halley, Halley cannot help but feel that it is in part because of the ways she has changed in the past few months. Halley describes the sensation of her grandmother not recognizing her as scary, not only because of its implications for her grandmother’s well-being but also because of what it implies about her identity.

“I wondered again why the right thing always seemed to be met with so much resistance, when you’d think it would be the easier path. You had to fight to be virtuous, or so I was noticing.”

When Scarlett refuses to quit her job at the market despite their boss’s subtle suggestion, she tells Halley that she is not ashamed of the pregnancy and that no one can make her feel that way. This quote speaks to the social stigma associated with teenaged pregnancy.

“Just standing across the battle line, eye to eye, no further than where we’d started. A draw.”

The motif of the stand-off or draw appears throughout the text, specifically as it relates to Halley’s relationships with her mother and Macon. In this quote, Halley and Macon are in a stand-off relating to Halley’s hesitation to have sex with him. There is a push and pull that Halley is resisting when it comes to having sex for the first time with Macon. Rather than Macon respecting those boundaries, Halley intuits that she will have to adjust her boundaries and have sex with him, soon, if she wants to continue their relationship.

“It was a ring, silver and thick, that looked like nothing I would have picked out for myself. But when I slid it on, it looked just right.”

Macon gives Halley a silver ring for Christmas, and her reaction to it indicates how little Macon really understands or knows her beyond a surface level. She states that the ring is something she would not have picked out for herself. Despite this, Halley puts the ring on, telling herself that when she is wearing it, it looks “just right.” The ring is symbolic of her relationship with Macon: Halley has changed herself in order to feel like she fits with Macon, even though there are aspects of their relationship that feel wrong or ill fitting.

“So that was that. I’d made my choice and now I had to stick to it. I told myself that it was the right thing, what I wanted to do, yet something still felt uneven and off-balance. But it was too late to go back now.”

Halley reflects on her feelings after telling Macon that she plans to have sex with him for the first time on New Year’s Eve. Her feelings of being off-balance or uneven allude to her previous description of their disagreement about sex as a draw or battle: Halley feels as if she has given in and lost something in agreeing to have sex with Macon. Throughout the text, Halley fights to find her voice and agency in her relationships. In her relationship with Macon, she has lost her agency and her sense of self, giving up her values and desires for Macon’s happiness.

“You can’t just turn your heart off like a faucet; you have to go to the source and dry it out, drop by drop.”

Halley uses a metaphor to explain her feelings about Macon after their breakup. The time they spent together, both good and bad, has had a significant impact on her life, and therefore she cannot move on from her feelings for him immediately following the breakup. She compares her feelings to going to a water’s source and slowly, over time, allowing it to dry up. In time, she will move on from Macon, although she may never forget him completely.

“I deserved I love yous and kiwi fruits and flowers and warriors coming to my door, besotted with love. I deserved pictures of my face in a million expressions, and the warmth of a baby’s kick under my hand. I deserved to grow, to change, to become all the girls I could ever be over the course of my life, each one better than the last.”

This quote illustrates the evolution of Halley’s acceptance of herself. Through the way Macon treated her, Halley has learned that she deserves more than what he was willing to give her. Through the choices and mistakes Halley has made, she realizes that she is not a finished product but one with many iterations, each one growing and improving through what she has learned.

“‘I will never learn,’ I said to her slowly, ‘until you let me.’ And so we stood there in the kitchen, my mother and I, facing off over everything that had built up since June, when I was willing to hand myself over free and clear. Now, I needed her to return it all to me, with the faith that I could make my own way.”

This is a turning point in Halley and Julia’s relationship, as Halley articulates for the first time what exactly she needs from her mother, and her mother is willing to give it. In this quote, Halley tells Julia that she needs the space in which to make her own mistakes and to learn from them. They have reached the crucial point in the parent-child relationship journey in which the parent must decide to let go with the faith that they have given their child the tools to make their own decisions, even if those decisions sometimes result in mistakes.

“You can’t just plan a moment when things get back on track, just as you can’t plan the moment you lose your way in the first place. But standing there alone on the landing, I thought of Grandma Halley and how she’d held me close against her lap as we watched the sky together. I’d always thought I couldn’t remember, but suddenly in that moment, I closed my eyes and saw the comet, finally, bright and impossible, stretching above me across the sky.”

In this moment, Halley recalls the important memory of watching Halley’s Comet with her grandmother. Halley’s mother has always told her that it was too cloudy to see the comet properly, and for years Halley believed her, revising her own memories to suit her mother’s narrative. Now that her mother has tacitly agreed to allow Halley more agency in her own life as she grows up, Halley revisits this scene in her mind and can now see the comet in her memories. Whether or not she actually saw the comet is not as important as the fact that in this moment, Halley gets to decide for herself.

“I watched my mother do what she did best, and realized there would never be a way to cut myself from her entirely. No matter how strong or weak I was, she was a part of me, as crucial as my own heart. I would never be strong enough, in all my life, to do without her.”

This quote provides narrative closure to the tension between Halley and Julia. As Halley watches her mother step up to help Scarlett become a mother, she understands the power inherent in motherhood and its implications for her own relationship with her mother. Earlier, Halley wanted Julia to set her free and allow her to become her own person, which is necessary for her personal growth and development. Now, Halley realizes that even as she continues to grow and change, she will always be her mother’s daughter.