Ugly Love (Hoover)/Chapter 22

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💥

Colleen Hoover

Ugly Love. Chapter 22

A secret marriage meets a pregnancy revelation

2014

Summary of a Chapter
from the Collection “Ugly Love”

The original takes about 6 minutes to read

Microsummary

After their parents revealed they had married, Miles admitted Rachel was pregnant with his baby. His father punched him, but Miles returned, promised support, and reunited with Rachel in her room.

Chapter Summary

Six years earlier, Miles’s father gathered Miles and Rachel with Rachel’s mother, Lisa. Miles said they also had news. He expected an engagement announcement, but his father and Lisa revealed that they had already married in Las Vegas.

Rachel began crying. The newlyweds thought she was upset about missing the wedding. Miles put his arm around her and announced that she was pregnant, leaving both parents stunned.

Lisa said Rachel did not even have a boyfriend. Miles’s father angrily demanded to know who had left her to face this announcement without him, calling Miles her brother. Miles rejected that description and admitted that he was the father.

His father ordered him out, then shoved him toward the door despite Rachel’s pleas. When Miles told her he loved her and would be at Ian’s, his father punched him. Miles left and discovered his bleeding lip in the car mirror.

Miles returned, apologized, and promised Lisa that he would care for Rachel and their baby. He explained that their relationship predated his knowledge of their parents’ involvement. Lisa restrained his angry father and suggested getting the pregnancy “taken care of.” Miles said Rachel was too far along.

Miles went to Rachel’s room and locked the door. She embraced him and cried. He joked that the hard part was over; she answered that delivering their son would be harder. They laughed, and Rachel whispered that she loved him.

Characters

❤️

Miles — narrator, young man preparing for college, Rachel’s boyfriend and newly made stepbrother, father of her unborn baby, frightened by his father’s rejection but determined to support her.

💢

Miles’s father — adult man, Lisa’s new husband and Rachel’s stepfather, initially happy about his marriage, then furious at his son’s revelation and physically violent toward him.

💕

Rachel — young woman preparing for college, Lisa’s daughter, Miles’s pregnant girlfriend and new stepsister, distressed by the confrontation and affectionate toward Miles.

💍

Lisa — adult woman, Rachel’s mother and Miles’s new stepmother, shocked by the pregnancy, comforted by her husband, and later protective enough to restrain his anger.

Quotes

What kind of guy knocks a girl up and doesn’t have the balls to be with her when she tells her own mother? What kind of guy would let a girl’s brother be the one to break the news?

“I’ll be at Ian’s,” I tell her. “I love you.”
Those words are obviously too much for my father, because his
fist immediately comes at me. He pulls his hand back and looks
almost as shocked as I do

“I love her,” I say. “I’m in love with your daughter. I’ll take care
of them.”

We’ve got this.*

Lisa can’t even look at me.
They both hate me.

This summary is based on the UK edition of the novel (London: Simon & Schuster UK, 2014).