Ugly Love (Hoover)/Chapter 32

This summary was created using artificial intelligence. It has not yet been reviewed by an editor and may contain errors.

🌊

Colleen Hoover

Ugly Love. Chapter 32

A newborn’s homecoming ends in a fatal crash

2014

Summary of a Chapter
from the Collection “Ugly Love”

The original takes about 7 minutes to read

Microsummary

Driving home with their newborn, Miles and Rachel crashed into a lake. Miles helped save Rachel but could not rescue Clayton. As Rachel blamed him, he feared their loss had destroyed their love.

Chapter Summary

Six years earlier, Miles celebrated the birth of his two-day-old son, Clayton. Seeing Lisa and his father love the baby, he believed Clayton had brought their families together and already considered him a hero.

Ian visited the hospital, and Rachel persuaded him to hold Clayton. He revealed that, after first meeting Rachel, Miles had sent him her picture and predicted she would have his children. Rachel was delighted.

After the doctor discharged them, Ian helped Miles load the car and hugged him goodbye. Miles felt encouraged by his friend's approval. He drove away with Rachel sitting beside Clayton in the backseat.

The parents admired their baby and joked about his appearance. Miles urged Rachel to rest, but she could not stop watching Clayton. Then Miles noticed unusually bright oncoming traffic, and a collision sent their car off a bridge into a lake.

As water filled the car, Rachel struggled to free Clayton's stuck car seat. Miles broke his window and tried to help, but Rachel's seat belt was also trapped. Despite her demands that he save Clayton first, Miles freed her belt and pulled her toward his window.

A rescuer helped get Rachel out. Miles kept searching for Clayton until he could no longer breathe. He regained consciousness in a boat, injured and beside Rachel. When he tried to return for the baby, others restrained him and said it was too late.

Rachel screamed that Miles should have saved Clayton instead of her. He held her while she hit and kicked him, inwardly insisting he had tried to save both. They wept together, and Miles blamed himself for destroying their family and believed Rachel could no longer love him.

Characters

💔

Miles — narrator, young man, Rachel's partner and Clayton's father; a loving and hopeful new parent who desperately tries to save his family and becomes overwhelmed by grief and guilt.

🥀

Rachel — young woman with red hair, Miles's partner and Clayton's mother; affectionate and absorbed in her newborn before the accident, she demands his rescue and reacts to his death with anguish and anger toward Miles.

🍼

Clayton — two-day-old baby boy, son of Miles and Rachel; said to resemble his mother, he brings joy to his family before becoming trapped in his car seat and dying in the submerged car.

🤝🏻

Ian — young man, Miles's supportive friend; inexperienced with babies, he holds Clayton, shares Miles's early prediction about Rachel, and helps the family leave the hospital.

🛟

Rescuer — male stranger of unspecified age who reaches through the broken car window and helps Miles pull Rachel out of the sinking vehicle.

Quotes

It’s not your *actual* life that flashes before your eyes.
What flashes before your eyes are the people who *are* your life.
Rachel and Clayton.
All I see is the two of them—*my whole life*—flash before my
eyes.

I try to hold her, but she won’t let me. She’s screaming.
Sobbing. CRYING. WAILING.
She hits me.
She kicks me.
She says I should have saved him instead.

But I tried to save you both, Rachel.*

It hurts so much. I never knew a heart could hold the weight of the entire world.
I don’t make Rachel’s life better anymore.
I ruined you, Rachel.

My family.*

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