In the chap­ter The Plus-One, the pro­tag­o­nist, Han­nah, is con­front­ed with a deep inter­nal strug­gle that leaves her emo­tions torn between attrac­tion and rage. Her grow­ing feel­ings for Will are cloud­ed by the unset­tling real­iza­tion that he may be tied to a trag­ic event involv­ing her sis­ter, Alice. As Han­nah reflects on the events that have led her to this painful con­clu­sion, she recalls a con­ver­sa­tion with Jethro and Luis, which plant­ed the seed of sus­pi­cion about Will’s involve­ment in Alice’s untime­ly death. Despite her attempts to dis­miss these thoughts as mere coin­ci­dence, the facts begin to align too per­fect­ly, forc­ing her to face the painful truth that Will may have played a role in the destruc­tion of Alice’s life.

The dark past resur­faces as Han­nah recalls the anony­mous video that was cir­cu­lat­ed about Alice, a video that deeply dam­aged her sister’s rep­u­ta­tion. At the time, the grief of los­ing Alice over­whelmed her fam­i­ly, pre­vent­ing them from inves­ti­gat­ing the true source of the video or iden­ti­fy­ing who was respon­si­ble for the pub­lic humil­i­a­tion. In her own pri­vate world, Han­nah swears vengeance, yet she finds her­self grap­pling with the irony that the same man she is drawn to—Will—is the one she believes may have con­tributed to Alice’s trag­ic end. The attrac­tion she feels towards Will, once seen as harm­less or even flat­ter­ing, now feels like a betray­al to her sis­ter, adding to the tur­moil brew­ing inside her.

As the wed­ding pro­gress­es, Hannah’s sus­pi­cions are only solid­i­fied by her obser­va­tions of Will. At the wed­ding, she watch­es his every move, notic­ing the way he inter­acts with oth­ers and, most dis­turbing­ly, how his charm seems to eeri­ly mir­ror the way he once engaged with Alice. His inter­ac­tions with her also take on a strange famil­iar­i­ty, as if he has mis­tak­en her for her late sis­ter. This unset­tling real­iza­tion sparks a stronger sense of fury and help­less­ness with­in her, espe­cial­ly as she sees him con­tin­u­ing to flour­ish despite the shad­ow of his past actions.

The wed­ding set­ting becomes a poignant con­trast to Hannah’s inner tur­moil. Sur­round­ed by guests who remain bliss­ful­ly unaware of the weight of her emo­tions, she moves through the mar­quee, which inter­mit­tent­ly grows dark, a fit­ting metaphor for her state of mind. With each pass­ing moment, her desire for revenge deep­ens, and the fes­tiv­i­ty around her feels more like a reminder of Alice’s lost poten­tial rather than a cel­e­bra­tion. The jux­ta­po­si­tion between Will’s appar­ent suc­cess and the trag­ic end of her sis­ter cre­ates a bit­ter sense of injus­tice that Han­nah can­not ignore.

The cut­ting of the wed­ding cake is a sym­bol­ic moment that becomes the cli­max of Han­nah’s emo­tion­al tur­moil. Watch­ing Will and his bride, Jules, per­form this rit­u­al of union and cel­e­bra­tion, Hannah’s anger reach­es its peak. When Jules smash­es cake into Will’s face as part of the cer­e­mo­ny, Han­nah is struck by the seem­ing­ly inno­cent act, but to her, it holds a vio­lent under­tone. The moment mir­rors her inner con­flict, the grow­ing rage she feels toward Will, and her desire to lash out, to some­how make him feel the weight of the wrongs that have been done to Alice.

Hannah’s nar­ra­tive is a pow­er­ful por­tray­al of grief, betray­al, and the search for jus­tice. Her emo­tions are com­plex, caught between the aching loss of her sis­ter and the grow­ing real­iza­tion that she might be falling for a man who could have played a part in her death. As she watch­es the wed­ding unfold, the exter­nal joy con­trasts sharply with her inter­nal chaos, high­light­ing the dif­fi­cul­ty of rec­on­cil­ing the pub­lic cel­e­bra­tion with the pri­vate grief and anger that con­sume her. Through Hannah’s eyes, the read­er is drawn into a world where revenge and jus­tice feel inter­twined, and where the past’s unre­solved pain threat­ens to over­shad­ow any hope of mov­ing for­ward.