Opening
In these chapters, Eden McCrorey inches toward intimacy with Josh Miller but recoils when love and honesty demand vulnerability. A lie detonates their secrecy, home turns hostile, and the social world closes in—pushing Eden toward a hardened identity that promises control but delivers isolation.
What Happens
Chapter 21: Secrets and Scars
Eden wakes up in Josh’s bed, where he asks what they are and nudges her about past sexual experiences. She refuses to answer, so they trade “safe” secrets instead. Eden admits she used to play clarinet and start a book club; Josh calls her beautiful, and she blushes, glimpsing the girl she used to be.
When he notices the scar above her eyebrow, she tells him she got it falling off her bike at twelve. The memory opens into a flashback: after the crash, Kevin Armstrong—her brother’s best friend—“rescues” her, and her childhood crush hardens into what she once thought was love. Back in the present, Eden spirals, imagining that if a train had come that day, she would have been spared the rape. She slips and voices, “Am I lucky there wasn’t a train?” Josh recoils, alarmed by the darkness beneath her silence. Later, as she pretends to sleep, he whispers, “I love you.” Terrified, Eden sneaks out.
Chapter 22: The Birthday Date
At school, Eden’s best friend Mara asks about birthday plans. Josh interrupts at the locker, exhausted by secrecy: he’s tired of her rules, the hidden meet-ups, the way she keeps him walled off. “We have something more. You have to see that, right?” he says. Eden can’t explain her fear or the reasons for her silence, but when he softens and hugs her, she feels “terrifyingly safe.” He asks to take her out for her birthday. She says yes—their first real date.
Chapter 23: The Lie Unravels
Eden arrives to a locker wrapped in “HAPPY 15TH BIRTHDAY” and freezes—Josh thinks she’s sixteen. He drags her into the boys’ bathroom, furious. His panic is practical: as an eighteen-year-old with a basketball future, he could face statutory rape charges. His fear for his scholarship and freedom drowns out any talk of feelings.
Desensitized to the word “rape,” Eden laughs, which cuts him deeper. To reclaim control of the moment, she becomes cold, decisive, untouchable. “No. I don’t care,” she says, ending it as if it never mattered. She walks away while he breaks.
Chapter 24: A Painful Homecoming
Over Christmas break, Caelin McCrorey returns with Kevin. Caelin stares at Eden’s new look—“grown up”—and later admits, “I don’t even recognize you anymore.” In the kitchen, Kevin corners her, gropes her, and whispers, “Lookin’ good, Edy.” The assault proves she is unsafe even at home.
That night Caelin confronts her about rumors and forbids her from seeing Josh. He frames it as protection; she hears judgment and absence. The argument explodes—Eden refuses to be policed by the brother who wasn’t there when she needed him. Their bond buckles under everything unsaid.
Chapter 25: Aftermath and a New Beginning
After break, two of Josh’s friends trap Eden in a hallway, taunting her with “McSlutty” and crude sexual comments. They also reveal Caelin fought Josh. Eden storms home; Caelin admits he hit Josh on New Year’s after hearing what Josh supposedly said about her. She screams that he’s only made things worse. Later, they share a makeshift “pizza sandwich,” a fragile truce built from childhood.
Back at school, Eden sees Josh’s bruised face. She moves to explain, but one of his friends coughs “slut.” Josh tells him to stop—then his new, popular girlfriend appears, and he stays with her. Eden puts on her tough face and walks away. The narrative jumps to Junior Year: Eden and Mara buy beer at a gas station, then drink and smoke with older boys at a deserted playground. Eden leans into a reckless persona, using numbness and danger to survive.
Character Development
Eden’s shot at healing through intimacy collapses under silence and fear, pushing her toward a persona that promises agency by rejecting vulnerability.
- Eden McCrorey: Longing clashes with avoidance. She craves connection with Josh but chooses self-protection, ends the relationship to control the narrative, and by Junior Year embraces risk—alcohol, weed, older boys—as a mask and a weapon.
- Josh Miller: He wants more than sex, offers care, and even defends Eden in public, but when the age lie surfaces, he prioritizes his future. Under social pressure, he gravitates to a safer, more acceptable girlfriend.
- Caelin McCrorey: He sees change without seeing cause. His attempts to protect—lectures, a fight with Josh—amplify danger and shame, underscoring the gap between intention and impact.
- Kevin Armstrong: His brief appearance reasserts threat and dominance. He acts like he still owns Eden’s body, making clear the violence isn’t past—it’s present.
Themes & Symbols
Eden’s need to survive collides with her need to be known. Silence becomes both shield and prison, and control becomes a performance that costs her selfhood.
- Trauma, Silence, and Secrecy: Eden’s refusal to discuss her rape creates an intimacy dead zone with Josh, sabotaging trust and turning potential safety into danger. Her slip—“Am I lucky there wasn’t a train?”—reveals how unspoken pain warps risk, love, and self-perception. Trauma, Silence, and Secrecy defines every rupture here.
- Identity and the Loss of Self: The clarinet, the book club, the blush—fleeting sparks of the girl she was. Caelin’s “I don’t even recognize you anymore” names the absence. By Junior Year, Eden performs the rumor: wearing the label to wield it, even as it erases her. Identity and the Loss of Self sits at the center of her transformation.
- Control and Powerlessness: Kevin’s assault and the hallway harassment strip Eden’s agency. In response, she seizes what control she can—ending things with Josh on her terms, courting danger to feel untouchable. It’s agency through negation, a brittle illusion. Control and Powerlessness cycles through every choice.
Symbols
- The Scar: A visible wound Eden can narrate, contrasted with the invisible, unsayable damage of rape. It’s also tied to Kevin—the day the crush began, the day vulnerability became an entry point for harm.
- The Pizza Sandwich: A childlike peace offering, a brief return to before. It mends nothing, but shows the longing for a bond that trauma has warped.
Key Quotes
“We have something more. You have to see that, right?” Josh names the intimacy Eden feels but can’t allow. The line crystallizes the central conflict: love requires disclosure; trauma refuses it.
“Am I lucky there wasn’t a train?” Eden’s intrusive thought exposes the logic of trauma—how pain retroactively rewrites fate. It alarms Josh and reveals the gulf between her interior and what she can say.
“No. I don’t care.” Eden’s lie is armor. She weaponizes indifference to reclaim control, even if it means destroying the one healthy connection available to her.
“Lookin’ good, Edy.” Kevin’s predatory whisper reduces Eden to an object and reasserts the ongoing nature of his power. The house isn’t a refuge; it’s a site of danger.
“I don’t even recognize you anymore.” Caelin voices the visible aftermath of invisible harm. His observation is accurate but empty without understanding, underscoring the failure of support.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
This arc marks the collapse of Eden’s potential lifelines. The secret with Josh breaks under pressure, her home proves unsafe, and the social ecosystem brands and punishes her. With no credible protection from family or peers, Eden trades vulnerability for performance—adopting the reputation forced on her to feel in control of it.
The time jump to Junior Year shows consequence over time, not a single fall: Eden moves from surviving to self-erasing, using substances, sex, and risk to mute pain and dictate terms she couldn’t control before. These chapters pivot the novel from the possibility of healing to the momentum of harm, tracing how unaddressed trauma hardens into identity.