“She wasn’t thinking about me. I have to tell myself that she wasn’t thinking about me. That if she had been—if my name or eyes or smile or any part of me had broken through the fog that’d settled over her—she wouldn’t have done it.”

Coley’s internal monologue reveals the depth of her survivor’s guilt following her mother’s death by suicide. The repetition and conditional phrasing highlight her continuous attempt to construct a comforting narrative, one where she was loved enough to have prevented the tragedy. This illustrates the theme of Grief as an Isolating Force, showing how Coley grapples with her trauma alone.

“She’s following me. It’s a feeling I’ve never had before, because when a guy follows you, it’s scary, not thrilling. But this is…It’s like I can count every beat of blood in my veins.”

This internal monologue is an important moment of self-discovery for Coley. By contrasting the scary feeling of being followed by a guy with the “thrilling” sensation of being pursued by Sonya, she articulates a clear distinction in her attractions. This realization is a significant step in understanding her LGBTQ+ identity.

“I pull the jacket toward me, pressing the material against my cheek. Rose oil—faint, but there—fills my senses, and my eyes burn as I sit on the floor, holding it against me like I held her on the floor of the apartment, trying to hold it all in.”

In this passage, the jean jacket becomes a powerful symbol of grief and connection. The sensory details of the soft material and the faint scent of rose oil transform it from mere clothing into a tangible link to Coley’s late mother. It offers a painful but necessary comfort, an embrace from a mother she can no longer hold.

“How can I know you if you don’t let anyone see you?”

This question is the emotional core of Coley’s challenge to Sonya’s social persona. It frames authenticity and, by implication, vulnerability as prerequisites for genuine connection. Coley’s question implies that Sonya is afraid of being authentic, which means that she’s afraid of showing Coley her vulnerability. This challenge underscores Sonya’s narrative role as a deuteragonist, putting her on an arc parallel to the protagonist’s own.

“Can she tell? Oh God, please, let her never find out.

As soon as I think it, she looks at me. She smiles, her chin dipping, devilish as she sips the plum wine, and suddenly, all I can think is Please, please let her find out.

Please let her hand brush against mine on the couch.

It does.

Please let her pinkie hook over mine, an unspoken promise, just us two.

She does.”

This quote captures Coley’s internal conflict regarding her attraction to Sonya. The abrupt shift from “please, let her never find out” to her desperate pleas for physical connection uses contradiction to illustrate the battle between her fear of rejection and her overwhelming desire. The terse phrasing of each response to Coley’s pleas (“It does” and “She does”) gives her a sense of power that makes her feel like she can have what she wants so long as she mentally expresses her desire for it.

“‘She, uh, “borrowed” it from me years ago. Never gave it back. She always said it looked better on her than me.’ The smile’s so wide now, awash with memories I’m not part of, and I hate him, suddenly, for having so many pieces of her that I will never get now.”

This quote captures the moment when Coley’s unique connection to her mother via the jacket is shattered. Curtis’s memory, which he sees as a fond connection, is presented as an intrusion to Coley, which Kiyoko signals with her internal monologue (“I hate him […] for having so many pieces of her that I will never get now”). It highlights her intense possessiveness over her mother’s memory while also deepening her resentment for her father, whom she sees as a force to resist rather than bond with over the loss of her mother.

“post-it

little yellow square

secret slipped under the door

drunk on you and me”

Sonya’s LiveJournal uses the haiku form to express her growing feelings over Coley. Within the larger context of the novel form, the poem reveals the vulnerability that Sonya often conceals. Rather than stating her feelings directly, the line “drunk on you and me” is a coded admission of her intoxication with Coley, blurring the literal and metaphorical to protect herself and her feelings.

“It’s maybe the bravest thing I’ve ever done, typing it and sending it, quick before I lose whatever insane nerve I’ve just summoned.”

This moment showcases Authenticity as an Act of Courage. Kiyoko uses hyperbole (“bravest”) to emphasize the stakes that Coley feels around expressing her feelings toward Sonya through a flirtatious message. Coley underscores the risk of her actions by attributing her impulsiveness to an “insane nerve,” indicating that she never really acts this way, except with Sonya.

“‘You know.’ Her eyebrows raise. ‘Rumors. She was really close to another senior cheerleader when she graduated.’”

By framing Faith’s presumed sexuality as a dangerous “rumor,” Sonya distances herself from the moral implications of the antigay bias she’s exhibiting. This conveniently allows her to maintain her status in the social hierarchy while extending her possessiveness over Coley, fearing that Faith, whom Sonya sees as a rival, might influence her.

“Our bodies click together like puzzle pieces. She curves around me like she’s a crescent moon and I’m the hidden half, something to be sheltered and cherished. I sigh into it—into her—the long line of heat sizzling up me.”

The simile of “puzzle pieces” articulates the deep sense of rightness and belonging that Coley feels in Sonya’s arms. Kiyoko compounds this feeling by introducing complementary images, like being the “hidden half” of a crescent moon. This contrasts against Coley’s initial framing of her search for a girl like her, as she now no longer sees Sonya as another person but as half of the same whole she belongs to.

“‘Olive juice, too,’ I whisper, because this is a moment for a whisper. This is a moment to remember.”

Kiyoko introduces “Olive juice” as a coded declaration of “I love you,” marking the peak of the intimacy between Coley and Sonya. Sonya’s reluctance to say the words directly stems from her fear of vulnerability and authenticity. However, Coley’s understanding and willingness to speak using the same terms underscores her desire to protect Sonya’s vulnerability and meet her on the same emotional level.

“SonyatSunrisex00x: sorry for being weird last night”

Sonya’s message reframes their shared vulnerability as “weirdness,” contradicting and therefore undermining the intimacy of their relationship. This signals the increased challenge to Coley and Sonya’s relationship, as they have to contend with Sonya’s non-committal behavior, which finds its roots in her characteristic fear of vulnerability.

“‘I’m not like this,’ she says, and I don’t want to think about what she means, because she clutches me closer as she says it. Gathers me to her chest like someone’s going to tear me away. ‘I’m not like this,’ she repeats, and tears spill down her face, dripping onto my shirt even as she clutches it tighter.”

Sonya’s physical actions, which signal affection as she pulls Coley closer to her, contradicts her dialogue, embodying her deep internal conflict. The simile of Sonya holding Coley “like someone’s going to tear [her] away” emphasizes her desperate need for intimacy, yet the unspoken quality of her actions brushes against the repetition of the statement “I’m not like this,” which makes her desire to hide her sexuality clear to Coley.

“‘You need to learn to take a joke,’ I hear Trenton yell distantly behind us.”

After he yells an antigay slur at Coley and Alex, Trenton downplays his aggression by passing it off as a “joke.” This conversely puts the burden of humiliation and ostracism on Coley and Alex by making them look as though they can’t tell the difference between aggression and humor, underscoring the insidious nature of Trenton’s social control.

“I, uh, heard about your mom? I’m so sorry, Coley.”

Alex’s well-intentioned but destructive admission reveals Sonya’s betrayal of Coley’s deepest and most painful secret. This moment transforms Coley’s trust into deep hurt, marking a turning point in Coley’s relationship with Sonya as she comes to believe that Sonya has betrayed her vulnerability.

“You’re being silly, Coley. I’m like this with all my friends. Some girls are touchy-feely. It doesn’t mean anything. Especially not what you’re thinking.”

During their confrontation, Sonya cruelly invalidates their entire relationship. By labeling their intimacy as meaningless “touchy-feely” behavior, she denies both Coley’s and her own feelings, retreating into a performance of heteronormativity to protect herself from the vulnerability that their relationship requires. This invalidation is compounded upon by Sonya’s qualification that she behaves the same way toward all her friends, implying that Coley is nobody special to her.

“Camp was supposed to be my sanctuary. My break from all this summer drama and weirdness and these…I dunno…these feelings. A respite from it all.”

In her private LiveJournal entry, Sonya reveals the turmoil she hides from everyone. The phrase “these…I dunno…these feelings” shows her unwillingness to reckon with the implications of her actions because it would mean exposing herself to the possibility of guilt and shame, which brushes against her fear of vulnerability. Even then, the irony of her situation is that the camp, which should have given her physical distance from her fraught relationship with Coley, only makes her think about it more.

“You didn’t fight for me. You didn’t even try. No summer visits. No phone calls on Christmas. Not even a card on my birthday.”

Coley’s confrontation with Curtis marks a turning point in her narrative arc, signaling the strong potential for character growth. By listing specific, failed milestones, she quantifies his absence and its destructive impact on her life, which is a far cry from the avoidance she showed toward him and her new reality at the beginning of the novel.

“I don’t know why I’m not enough for her. Why am I not enough for anyone? Mom gave up on me. She must’ve hated me, too.”

Coley’s raw confession to her father connects the romantic rejection from Sonya to the deep-seated abandonment she feels from her mother’s death by suicide. Though the two events are unrelated, their equivocation reinforces a larger narrative that Coley has internalized within her character: the misconception that she’s not good enough to be loved.

“I replay moments in my mind—the freckles on your back, the lotion between my fingers…I wanted to turn around that night, after the party, when we were alone. I wanted to turn and stand there and let you look at me. I wanted you to see all of me as much as I wanted to see you.”

In an unsent email to Coley, Sonya uses the privacy of a digital space to express her true feelings. The specific, sensual details contrast sharply with her rejection of Coley, showing her deep yearning for genuine intimacy and vulnerability. Conversely, the articulation of Sonya’s intentions reframes her actions during the party, filling in another perspective of the scene since it had initially been depicted from Coley’s point of view.

“‘Everyone needs a good-luck charm,’ he says. ‘You know, people associate stones with a bunch of different things. In some spiritual traditions, tiger’s-eye is a protective stone. In others, it’s said to bring clarity to the wearer.’”

Curtis gives Coley a new choker, reframing the tiger’s-eye stone from a symbol of her mother’s tragic death into one of protection and healing. This act shows a key turning point in their relationship, transforming the stone into a marker of their mending bond and Curtis’s renewed role as a caring father.

“I know you’re wrong, but this feels right—”

Sonya’s destructive confession to Coley perfectly encapsulates her intense internalized antigay bias. The key word in this passage is “you’re,” which focuses the root of Sonya’s dilemma in Coley herself. The implication is that without Coley, Sonya can live in harmony with her sexuality, albeit keeping it at bay rather than acknowledging it directly. The line starkly illustrates the theme of The Role of Stigma in Repressive Social Environments, as she verbalizes the societal belief that her and Coley’s sexualities are inherently wrong while simultaneously admitting her genuine feelings for Coley.

“‘I can’t wait on anyone to live my life anymore,’ I say softly. ‘I can’t do that to myself. I’m not going to waste my life being treated like shit. I’m not going to chase someone who’s too scared to love me back.’”

This declaration marks Coley’s emotional climax, where she prioritizes her own well-being and self-respect over her feelings for Sonya. Having found a supportive community and a budding relationship with her father, she demonstrates immense character growth, refusing to accept a love that requires her to diminish herself or wait indefinitely. This passage thus marks the completion of Coley’s character arc, showing her as a person who has grown out of her anxieties and flaws at the beginning of the novel.