p. 23

On page 23 Sam describes the differences of the areas where he and Alicia live before he goes to this party with his mum.("Everything about her place was different from ours.") I think you can already see here, that Alicia and Sam have different expectations about the life and the future. For example page 24 : "I wanted to live on my own, like one of the skaters..., and he had no girlfriend living there." Sam shows on this page, that he want liberty.