“The last twenty-four hours have overthrown everything I thought I knew, shattering the walls I’ve constructed over the years, dismantling each and every misaligned theory I force-fed myself, just so I could cope. Just so I could move forward with my life without him. But part of me knew—part of me fucking knew he was still out there, and I hate myself for not looking hard enough.”

Sydney reveals how Oliver’s abduction has adversely impacted her. The charged, violent diction—words like “dismantling,” “force-fed,” and “hate”—indicate that the loss of Oliver caused her trauma. Sydney’s dilemma reinforces the novel’s interest in how the novel impacts not only survivors, but also those who know and love them.

“I shake my head, overwhelmed and splintering at the seams. It’s too much. It’s all too much. I don’t know how to function in a world so vast, so cluttered and loud. I can’t decipher what’s real, what really existed before Bradford took me beneath the soil and fed me lies. I can’t differentiate between a memory, a dream, and a tall tale.”

Oliver continues to carry the theme of The Impact of Trauma on Survivors and Their Loved Ones. The negative terms—“don’t” and “can’t”—reflect the trouble he has with adjusting to the outside world. Reality eludes him, as he struggles to discern between his memories, dreams, and Bradford’s lies.

“I wanted to see you […] I just didn’t want to be seen.”

The repetition of “see” is proof of Oliver’s growth and struggles. He’s ready to look at and be around Sydney, but unsure of his identity, as he doesn’t want Sydney to be “seen” by her. Oliver’s grappling with his complicated feelings for Sydney speak to The Complexities of Sex and Intimacy as he readjusts to normal life and reconnects with Sydney.

“‘You little bitch. You just had to do this the hard way.’ ‘Who the hell are you? What do you want?’ ‘Answers.’”

The dialogue between Sydney and her attacker is critical foreshadowing. In Chapter 26, Sydney remembers the line, “You just had to do this the hard way,” which later helps her connect Travis to the attacker. At the time, Sydney is clueless, which is why she asks her attacker who he is and what he wants.

“The nerve—the goddamn nerve to beat and humiliate me in my own house, between the safety of my four walls, where I will never feel entirely at ease again.”

The attack traumatizes Sydney since it collapses her sense of safety and feeling “at ease” in her own home. While Sydney remains in her home and still gives Gabe and Oliver easy access to it, her sense of unease builds the narrative tension around who the home intruder could be, foreshadowing the final home invasion that will occur towards the end of the novel.

“Every year on the Fourth of July, once I became old enough to venture out on my own, I’d trek the short walk to this hill and watch the fireworks alone. I’d think of Oliver. I’d imagine him watching the very same display, somewhere safe and warm.”

July 4 symbolizes a personally historic day for the characters. It’s when Bradford abducted Oliver, forever changing his life and the lives of the people close to him. Like a general holiday or historic event, the characters establish rituals. Gabe marks the day by throwing a party, and Sydney pays homage to it by watching the fireworks on the hill.

“I’m running because I can. I’m running because I was unable to run for twenty-two years. Instead, I exercised in my cell, focusing on push-ups, sit-ups, jumping jacks, and an assortment of strengthening routines I’d read about in books. I enjoyed working-out because it felt good, and because my body was one of the very few things I had control over.”

After Bradford dies, Oliver starts running, which symbolizes his independence and newfound freedom. He’s been free from Bradford, but now that his kidnapper is officially dead, he feels an irrevocable sense of liberty that juxtaposes with the confines of his cell. Oliver’s remark about how control over his body was one of the few forms of control he did have speaks to how the captivity denied him his agency.

“I think you’re jumping the gun a little. Right now, you should be focusing on learning and growing—healing. Finding yourself. Figuring out who you are.”

Sydney wants to be in a romantic relationship with Oliver, but her diction indicates that she doesn’t feel Oliver is ready, which speaks to her own hesitations and doubts about The Complexities of Sex and Intimacy with Oliver. Oliver finds her response condescending; thus, the impact of trauma on survivors and their loved ones is that the former might treat the latter as if they’re excessively weak and incapable of making choices for themselves.

“Our friendship means a hell of a lot to me. Stuff like that—kissing, sex, romance—it complicates everything. It tears people apart, and I refuse to lose you again.”

Another reason Sydney stalls a romantic relationship with Oliver is The Complexities of Sex and Intimacy. For Sydney, sex symbolizes a casual or temporary experience. Her sex partners come and go, and Sydney doesn’t want a mercurial dynamic with Oliver. A huge component of Sydney’s character arc will revolve around her embracing emotional and physical vulnerability with Oliver.

“I’ve been wracking my brain, trying to figure out what triggered her to leave so suddenly, and that’s the only thing that comes to mind. I called her babygirl, and she just kind of froze, then bolted.”

Gabe’s dialogue about Clem’s reaction to him during their sexual experience foreshadows the revelation of Clem’s sexual abuse. The diction—the word “babygirl”—is what Travis called Clem when he was abusing her. The term triggered Clem when Gabe used it; feeling endangered, she left.

“My thumb hits a button and the contraption bursts to life, buzzing and vibrating in my hands. I let go, startled, and it clatters to her hardwood floor, causing a ruckus. It must be some kind of electronic massager.”

Oliver’s unfamiliarity with contemporary life is the product of a life-or-death situation, but Hartmann uses humor to occasionally ease the narrative tension. Due to his abduction, Oliver can’t identify Clem’s vibrator, so he plays with it as if it were an ordinary “massager.”

“That same month he was taken from me, I told him I was going to marry him one day. I planned our wedding, documenting it in my Lisa Frank journal, from the dress I’d wear, to the floral arrangements, to the beachside honeymoon in Maui.”

Sydney regularly highlights her bond with Oliver to emphasize how the loss hurt her. Sydney presents Oliver as a part of her fate, claiming that at five, she already planned to marry him. Sydney’s conviction that they would always end up together foreshadows their marriage at the novel’s end.

“Casual sex is one thing, but my relationship with Oliver is anything but casual. It’s everything. The risk of permanent damage is too great, and I refuse to cross that line.”

With juxtaposition, Sydney explicitly illustrates how Oliver clashes with her ideas regarding The Complexities of Sex and Intimacy. For Sydney, sex is “casual,” so when she considers sex with Oliver, she’s reluctant to go through with it: She doesn’t think of Oliver as “casual,” and she still fears that she could damage or ruin their bond by being both emotionally and sexually intimate with him.

“You’re going to lose me by trying too hard not to lose me, Syd.”

Using repetition, Oliver alerts Sydney that she’ll “lose” him by trying not to “lose” him. Put another way, she thinks sex will push him away, but her exclusion of sex already creates a distance. This passage also speaks to The Impact of Trauma on Survivors and Their Loves Ones, as Oliver does not want Sydney to continue treating him as fragile, as though his trauma exclusively defines who he is—instead, he wants her to recognize his agency and the validity of his own desires.

“You don’t ever forget. That ache never goes away. You just…adjust. You adjust to the void and rebuild your life around that missing piece, hoping something will come along one day and distract you just enough, that your pain abates…even if it’s only for a little while.”

Tabitha’s dialogue reflects The Impact of Trauma on Survivors and Their Loved Ones. The “pain” doesn’t vanish; there’s no way to categorically eradicate the “ache.” Nevertheless, people “adjust” with time and support, with Tabitha and Oliver’s moment of vulnerability and bonding speaking to the importance of a supportive environment for healthy healing.

“I have a secret, but I’m scared to tell you.” You can tell it to my teddy bear. She’s very good at keeping secrets.”

The childhood dialogue over the “secret” stresses The Power and Elusive Meaning of Memories. The memory is critical to what happened, but the memory is unclear. While Sydney knows that this exchange took place between herself and Oliver shortly before Oliver’s abduction, Sydney still doesn’t know the “secret,” so the conflict remains unsolved.

“Something happened this day. I feel uncomfortable. My skin prickles with dread.”

With the hypnotherapist, Oliver highlights The Power and Elusive Meaning of Memories. The force of the memory makes him palpably distraught, yet as with Sydney, Oliver doesn’t know the “something” that occurred on July 2, 1998. The answers remain beyond his reach, and he will continue to putting together clues until the mystery is solved.

“It’s hard to break someone who has already experienced the worst out of life. We tend to be fairly resilient.”

Oliver suggests here that The Impact of Trauma on Survivors and Their Loved Ones is not always exclusively negative. The “resilience” doesn’t justify or excuse the abduction, but it counters stereotypes that survivors are inevitably “broken.” Out of his traumatic experience, Oliver gained strength and, eventually, a voice.

“I’m not certain I desire anymore answers. I feel at peace with the memories I’ve recovered […] The hole I felt has been filled—she was all I was looking for.”

The dialogue between Oliver and his hypnotherapist circles back to Tabitha’s belief that there is not necessarily a clear antidote to emotional pain. However, Oliver here finds his own sense of peace, which is part of his healing process. More so, by detaching Oliver from the hypnotherapist, the clear memory of the sexual abuse isn’t the product of a controversial method, which would cast doubt on the memory’s validity.

“[Oliver] held onto that truth, spilling it into the only outlet he had. And then he forgot. Everything faded away—a defense mechanism, a repressed memory, combined with years of psychological trauma, force-fed lies, and PTSD. Missing memories are common with PTSD victims, even more so if Oliver witnessed a traumatic event prior to the abduction.”

For the first time, Sydney diagnoses Oliver with PTSD. By waiting till the latter part of the book, Hartmann allows Oliver to experience the range of consequences from his abduction without reducing it to a single medical term. At the same time, she includes the term because it explains aspects of his character arc.

“One wrong deal and my life was taken by the barrel of some anonymous prick’s forty-five revolver. My wife. My son. Even my fucking parakeet. I told myself I was done—hell, I was more than done. I was one shot of Jim Beam away from taking my own pistol to the back of my throat. Some days I regret being such a goddamn coward.”

Bradford coarse diction reflects his miserable state. By letting him narrate a chapter, Hartmann takes the reader inside of his mind and gives Bradford layers. He expresses remorse, so unlike Travis, he’s not entirely evil, as he has humane emotions and does form some emotional connections with others.

“Perched in the driver’s seat of my Dodge Intrepid, I glance at the photograph between my fingers, a line of sweat casing my brow. I’m fucking nervous and it’s really goddamn irritating. I’m never nervous when I’m about to do a job. But this is different. This is the kind of job that changes everything. There’s no coming back from this.”

Bradford creates an image of himself in the car to show his disquiet. The sweat and the cursing reveal his deep apprehension. He’s aware that he’s about to do something that will change his life and the lives of the other characters. Arguably, he’s not only traumatizing Oliver and those close to him, he’s also traumatizing himself.

“Evil. Travis Wellington is pure evil. And I realize in that moment that Bradford didn’t take me because I reminded him of his son. He spared me because I reminded him of his son.”

Oliver’s repetition of “evil” stresses Travis’s irredeemable characterization. The juxtaposition between Travis and Bradford continues to make the case that Bradford is not pure antagonist, as Bradford saves his life. The passage also speaks to The Power and Elusive Meaning of Memories, as it was Bradford’s memories of Tommy that inspired him to save Oliver.