Throughout the alternating storylines, Hannah often finds herself preoccupied with the notion of divine timing and fate. The structure of the novel reflects its exploration of destiny and the powerful impact that a single decision can have on a person’s life. In the romance genre, timing, coincidence, and chance are important narratives elements that bring potential love interests together. The question remains for Hannah whether each outcome that developed from her initial decision (with whom to leave the party) resulted in a chain of inevitable events, or if each storyline could have had a number of equally viable outcomes.

Readers first encounter the novel’s suggestion that a single decision can have major influence on the trajectory of a person’s life when, following her homecoming party, Hannah must decide to either go home with her high school sweetheart, Ethan, or her best friend, Gabby. That the novel presents two parallel storylines in which the consequences of Hannah’s decision that night unfold for the rest of the narrative suggests that even a seemingly unremarkable decision can have a significant impact on the course of one’s life.