Opening
In Chapters 36–40, Eden McCrorey spirals from a brutal fight with her best friend into public humiliation, isolation, and a snowbound breakdown. Her bond with Mara frays, her brother turns away, and the life she’s been constructing to outrun her pain collapses—until a small, shaky phone call hints at change.
What Happens
Chapter 36: A Friendship Fractures
Mara bursts in glowing after sleeping with her boyfriend, Cameron, and Eden cuts her down with sarcasm. The tension detonates when Eden reveals Mara forgot her birthday. Accusations fly: Mara says Eden has been jealous and impossible since she started dating, while Eden blasts Mara as self-absorbed and blind to anyone else’s life.
The fight curdles into cruelty. Eden sneers that it’s pathetic to let a guy dictate your life, a flare of her own struggle with Control and Powerlessness. Mara hits back with a deeply personal jab about Eden’s sex life: a “shower” is all she needs to “get over a guy.” Eden slams the car door and storms off. Days later, Mara leaves a voicemail apologizing for forgetting the birthday and for how she said things—but not for what she said—making the rift feel permanent.
Chapter 37: A Fragile Truce
Eden avoids Mara and shows up early to school, determined to keep her distance. Mara tracks her down, and the awkwardness is thick. Eden calls out the voicemail for dodging real accountability. They freeze in a stalemate until Eden cracks first, apologizing for her words and admitting her feelings are hurt.
Mara’s remorse breaks through. She confesses she feels like an “effing idiot” for forgetting the birthday and says her anger came from worry. They call it one ugly fight in seven years and agree to forgive each other. The bond reknits quickly: Mara gushes about her night with Cameron, and they skip school for breakfast, pretending—briefly—that they’re back to normal.
Chapter 38: The Party
Over Thanksgiving break, Eden brushes off a “brother-sister outing” from Caelin McCrorey, who’s home from college. She then heads to a campus party with Mara, Cameron, and Steve Reinheiser, the pleasant, low-key guy Mara hopes Eden will like. Eden declares she needs to get “wasted to have a good time,” and follows through—drinking hard, half-engaging Steve, then sending him for more alcohol. A random college guy offers a beer and a bedroom; Eden goes, framing sex as a way to “leav[e] myself behind.”
The door swings open mid-encounter. The room’s actual occupant—Rachael—stands there with her date: Caelin. He explodes, threatening the guy for touching his sixteen-year-old sister. Eden, drunk and laughing, escalates everything in the hallway: did she “mess up” Caelin’s plans to have sex? She spits that she isn’t his “sweet, stupid, innocent little sister” and lies that she’s slept with a hundred guys. Mara, Cameron, and Steve arrive to chaos. Eden humiliates Steve with a sloppy introduction. Caelin, disgusted, tells them to take her home and walks away.
Chapter 39: The Intervention
Caelin freezes Eden out for the rest of the weekend and leaves for college without their outing. At school, the air is different; even Mara keeps her distance. When Eden confronts her, Mara says Eden was cruel to Cameron and Steve—and then she tries, messily, to save her friend. She insists Eden has a “problem,” not just with drinking, but with how nothing seems to matter to her anymore.
Mara’s fear spills over: Eden is “out of control,” “acting crazy,” and seems “about to go over the edge.” She cries in the hallway: “I don’t like you like this.” Eden can’t bear it. With her defenses up and no words for the pain, she walks away, leaving Mara sobbing and herself more alone than ever.
Chapter 40: Rock Bottom
A snowstorm locks Eden at home and pins her to the past. She finds her freshman yearbook and stares at the book-club photo and her school portrait—the “stupid innocent smile” she doesn’t recognize. The gulf between who she was and who she is now yawns open, pulling her into the core of Identity and the Loss of Self. Laughter turns to choking sobs, and for the first time, she wonders if anyone would notice if she were gone.
Her mother, Vanessa McCrorey, orders her to shovel, sparking a fight that makes Eden feel invisible. At her lowest, she reaches for a tiny human connection: she calls Steve to apologize. He accepts, and they start a tentative conversation—a faint but real step toward Healing and Finding One's Voice.
Character Development
These chapters strip the characters down to their rawest edges and force them to reveal who they are under pressure.
- Eden McCrorey: Hits bottom. The drinking, sex, and sarcasm escalate until she alienates Mara and Caelin. Confronting the yearbook shatters her numbness; suicidal thoughts surface. Calling Steve is the first fragile move away from isolation.
- Mara: Grows from self-focused to deeply protective. Her clumsy, heartfelt intervention shows love and fear in equal measure, complicating her dynamic with Eden.
- Caelin McCrorey: Reacts with fury and judgment instead of help. His disgust and abandonment expose his limits and widen the family rift.
- Steve Reinheiser: Quietly kind. Despite public humiliation, he accepts Eden’s apology and offers steadiness, suggesting a healthier connection.
Themes & Symbols
Eden’s silence around her assault drives every conflict here, a textbook case of how Trauma, Silence, and Secrecy corrode relationships. She weaponizes detachment and sex to avoid vulnerability, but the secrecy isolates her further—turning friends into adversaries and family into strangers.
Control keeps slipping from Eden’s grasp. She tries to dictate the terms of her body and feelings, yet the party spirals beyond her, and the snowstorm traps her physically the way trauma traps her emotionally. The yearbook confrontation crystallizes Identity and the Loss of Self: Eden can see the old self but cannot inhabit her, which makes the small phone call to Steve feel like the first stitch in a torn self.
Symbols
- The Yearbook: A tangible memorial to Eden’s former self; touching it triggers grief, clarity, and collapse.
- The Snowstorm: Externalizes paralysis and isolation, sealing Eden in with her pain and her family’s dysfunction.
Key Quotes
“All you have to do to get over a guy is take a shower—that’s pathetic!”
Mara’s line is surgical and cruel, exposing how Eden’s coping strategies look from the outside. It lands because it’s both misinformed and painfully close to the truth of Eden’s self-erasure.
“We’re allowed one fight in seven years.”
Their truce hangs on this line—part joke, part oath. It underscores the longevity of their bond and how extraordinary the rupture feels, even as it foreshadows that one fight won’t fix the deeper problem.
“I don’t like you like this.”
Mara’s plain-language plea cuts through defenses. It’s not moral judgment but grief, naming the distance between the Eden she loves and the self-destructive stranger she sees.
“I’m not your sweet, stupid, innocent little sister.”
Eden’s taunt to Caelin is both performance and confession. She tries to control the narrative by embracing a hardened identity, but the venom reveals how much she aches to be seen and protected.
Sex as “leav[e] myself behind.”
Eden frames sex as escape, not connection. The phrasing captures dissociation—the impulse to abandon the self rather than live inside it.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
Chapters 36–40 mark the crisis point of Eden’s downward arc. The blowout with Mara, the party catastrophe with Caelin, and the snowbound breakdown show her coping mechanisms failing in public and private. With her support system shattered, she faces a stark choice: keep annihilating herself or risk asking for help.
Her call to Steve is the pivot. It’s small and cautious, but it signals a shift from isolation to connection—a first step toward rebuilding trust, repairing friendships, and, eventually, reclaiming a voice she’s long been too hurt to use.