The Way I Used to Be traces four turbulent years of high school as a quiet freshman’s world is shattered and reshaped by trauma, secrecy, and the slow, courageous work of rebuilding. Set in a small-town suburban landscape where reputations carry weight and silence protects the powerful, the novel’s cast revolves around a single violent act and its ripple effects through a family, a friend group, and a community. These characters—victims, enablers, friends, and would-be healers—reveal how identity, trust, and love are tested by what’s said and, more often, what isn’t.
Main Characters
Eden McCrorey
Eden is the novel’s narrator and emotional center, guiding readers through four years of high school after a sexual assault in her own home fractures her sense of self. Once studious and soft-spoken—nicknamed “Minnie Mouse” by her family—she becomes withdrawn, secretive, and angry, adopting a hardened persona to mask a pain she cannot share. Her relationships define both her isolation and her tentative reach for healing: Kevin’s threats trap her in silence; her beloved older brother Caelin feels impossibly far away; best friend Mara can’t understand who Eden has become; and Josh offers the possibility of trust she’s not yet ready to accept. Eden’s journey maps the novel’s core ideas—Identity and the Loss of Self, Control and Powerlessness, and ultimately Healing and Finding One's Voice—culminating when she confides in Josh and reports Kevin, a turning point that echoes the broader arc outlined in the Full Book Summary.
Kevin Armstrong
Kevin is the novel’s antagonist, a charismatic, well-liked athlete and Caelin’s best friend whose proximity to Eden’s family grants him trust he weaponizes. Manipulative and cruel beneath a polished exterior, he ensures Eden’s silence with the chilling assurance, “No one will ever believe you,” a threat that haunts her even while he’s away at college. His relationships double as shields: Caelin’s loyalty protects him, Eden’s fear isolates her, and his younger sister Amanda suffers in the same shadows he creates, as revealed after the events described in the Chapter 1-5 Summary. Kevin remains static and unrepentant—his ongoing predation leads to multiple reports and his eventual arrest—embodying the novel’s portrait of power abused and trust betrayed.
Supporting Characters
Caelin McCrorey
Caelin is Eden’s athletic, popular older brother and former confidant, whose obliviousness after the assault becomes a source of deep hurt. His unwavering loyalty to Kevin blinds him to the truth, compounding Eden’s isolation even as he continues to see himself as her protector. Only when Eden finally tells him does Caelin confront his failure, offering the fragile beginnings of repair.
Josh Miller
Josh is a senior basketball player who becomes Eden’s first meaningful romantic connection, seeing past her tough exterior to the vulnerable person beneath. Kind, perceptive, and patient, he’s hurt by Eden’s secrecy, yet his steady belief in her years later helps her find the courage to speak. By listening and trusting her, Josh modelizes the possibility of healthy intimacy, even when a relationship can’t yet hold it.
Mara
Mara is Eden’s best friend and a study in contrast: while Eden’s reinvention is trauma-driven, Mara’s transformation responds to social pressures and bullying. Their friendship frays under the weight of Eden’s silence, yet Mara remains a persistent—if imperfect—anchor to their shared past. Her evolving relationship with Cameron underscores what typical adolescent growth looks like beside Eden’s darker path.
Amanda Armstrong
Amanda is Kevin’s younger sister and a childhood friend of Eden’s whose hostility is baffling until the end of the novel reveals her own survival of Kevin’s abuse. Long simmering with anger and shame, she ultimately reports her brother, an act of bravery that triggers the novel’s climax. In discovering their shared trauma, Amanda and Eden mirror each other’s silence and courage.
Vanessa McCrorey
Vanessa is Eden and Caelin’s mother, emblematic of parental blindness that enables silence to thrive. Preoccupied with appearances and more attuned to Caelin, she misses crucial signs—mistaking evidence of the assault for Eden’s first period—and never bridges the emotional distance. Her static presence underscores the theme of Trauma, Silence, and Secrecy.
Steve Reinheiser
Steve (formerly Stephen) is a shy, intelligent classmate whose steady affection for Eden remains genuine and uncomplicated. As he grows more confident, his kindness becomes something Eden can’t accept, and her cruel dismissal of him in senior year marks a low point in her self-destructive spiral. Steve’s decency quietly illuminates how trauma can twist even gentle connections.
Minor Characters
Conner McCrorey
Eden’s father, affectionate yet inattentive, who dotes on Caelin and calls Eden “Minnie,” embodying the family’s failure to notice her pain.
Miss Sullivan
The school librarian who offers Eden refuge and purpose through the Lunch-Break Book Club, providing a rare adult ally during freshman year.
Cameron
An alternative student who joins the book club, becomes Mara’s boyfriend, and confronts Eden about her treatment of Steve, highlighting her drift into cruelty.
Troy and Alex
Two stoners from a rival school who usher Eden and Mara into the party scene, fueling Eden’s escalating escapism during junior year.
Character Relationships & Dynamics
The McCrorey family sits at the heart of the novel’s fracture and tentative repair. Eden and Caelin’s once-tight sibling bond is eroded by his devotion to Kevin and his failure to see Eden’s distress; only her eventual confession reframes him from unseeing accomplice to remorseful ally. With their parents, especially Vanessa, Eden feels invisible, convinced they would neither notice nor believe the truth, a vacuum that deepens her silence.
Friendships reveal what trauma distorts and what it can survive. Eden and Mara diverge—one coping through rebellion, the other through reinvention—yet their history keeps tugging them back toward each other. Caelin’s friendship with Kevin functions as a shield for Kevin’s predation, demonstrating how loyalty without scrutiny becomes complicity, while Miss Sullivan’s quiet mentorship models the kind of attentive care Eden otherwise lacks.
Romantic and sexual dynamics contrast violation with the possibility of trust. Eden’s abuse by Kevin is the novel’s foundational violence, not a relationship but an act that reshapes every connection that follows. With Josh, just as hope becomes imaginable, Eden’s fear and secrecy sabotage intimacy, though his steadfast belief later helps her step toward justice. Steve’s unrequited kindness further reveals how Eden’s internalized shame pushes away what might heal her, while Mara and Cameron’s steady, ordinary romance offers a healthy counterpoint to Eden’s turmoil.