The phrase “That was then, and this is now” appears twice in the text, and it also serves (minus the conjunction) as the title of the novel. Bryon first says it to Mark while the two of them are reminiscing about the past. Mark says that he misses the “one-for-all, all-for-one routine” of the past (69), but Bryon’s response implies that he disagrees, preferring the way things are now, with each of them developing as independent individuals. Later, at the novel’s conclusion, Mark repeats the phrase to Bryon in a different context. This time, Bryon is the one longing for the past, when he and Mark used to be so close.

 Mark’s reiteration of the phrase suggests that he now prefers the present to the past, with each of them reversing their previous position. It also links his current hatred of Bryon to events going back to that moment in time, when their paths started to diverge. By selecting this phrase at the title of the novel, Hinton draws attention to the central theme of The Choices and Responsibilities of Adulthood, reminding readers that the present is a result of choices and events that happened in the past, but those past events cannot be changed, no matter how much someone like Bryon might dwell on them.