SIX YEARS, ELEVEN MONTHS AGO

Six years and eleven months earlier, Hawthorne House hosts its private Fourth of July carnival, complete with rides, games, and fireworks. Twelve-year-old Jameson hides on top of the tree house after deciding Tobias Hawthorne has rigged the carnival games, giving Jameson a secret vantage point over the festivities.

Emily Laughlin arrives with thirteen-year-old Grayson, who has helped sneak Emily out despite her mother's worries about Emily's heart condition. Jameson overhears Emily tease Grayson, announce that Emily is going to kiss Grayson, and accuse Grayson of being scared even though Hawthornes claim not to fear anything.

Jameson interrupts, eager to prove that Jameson is not scared and to compete for Emily's attention. Jameson offers to kiss Emily, and Emily accepts, giving both of them their first kiss. Emily then turns to Grayson, who hesitates but ultimately kisses Emily too, creating a charged rivalry between the brothers.

Tobias Hawthorne enters the tree house and sends Emily away, noting that Emily's grandfather and mother are waiting below. Once Emily is gone, Tobias turns the moment into a lesson: he reminds Jameson and Grayson that their brothers are the only people who will ever truly understand them and that Hawthornes must put family first.

Tobias also warns them about love. He distinguishes frivolous kisses from the dangerous, all-consuming way Hawthorne men love, using his lifelong grief for Alice as an example. Tobias tells the boys that if they love someone less than fully, they will destroy that person, and if that person is truly the one, that person will destroy them.

The emotional lesson becomes another Hawthorne test when Tobias reveals that one board in the tree house has been weakened and orders the boys to find and break it. After Jameson and Grayson succeed, Tobias gives them a harder challenge: find a board that cannot be weakened and decide which kind of board the two brothers are.