The Same Backward as Forward

Jennifer Lynn Barnes

47 pages 1-hour read

Jennifer Lynn Barnes

The Same Backward as Forward

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2025

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Part 2, Chapters 1-21Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of illness, death, addiction, suicidal ideation, and substance use.

Part 2: “Toby”

Part 2, Chapter 1 Summary

Toby awakes to nothing but pain but is instantly taken by Hannah, her care, and her eyes. He doesn’t know how long he’s been unconscious or where he is, but Hannah’s gentleness and warmth soothe him. He asks her to let him die, but she answers that he won’t be so lucky.

Part 2, Chapter 2 Summary

Toby is in constant agony but sets his sights on Hannah and distracts himself with puzzles. He tries not to need her but knows that he depends on her for everything both physically and emotionally. When he wakes up later, Hannah tells him that he has amnesia, and Jackson gives him the name Harry since he cannot remember his own. Toby can sense that there is more to what has happened than they are letting on. He decides that Hannah will be his new puzzle to figure out.

Part 2, Chapter 3 Summary

Toby makes a game of trying to notice something new about himself and then something new about Hannah. He discovers that he hates boredom but that Hannah is never boring. He also finds that he hates being told what to do and that Hannah keeps her emotions hidden. Toby feels like he’s dying but notices that Hannah is in pain, too.

Part 2, Chapter 4 Summary

Toby is overwhelmed by pain and demands alcohol while Hannah is out. Jackson eventually relents but lectures Toby, telling him that Hannah is trying to save him. He claims that he only saved Toby because he happened to be fishing nearby.

Part 2, Chapter 5 Summary

Toby has a nightmare about being on a cliff surrounded by a black abyss. He dreams of fire and smoke, a poison tree, and a stone chamber in which he is imprisoned. He awakens to Hannah, who has quickly become his emotional anchor.

Part 2, Chapter 6 Summary

Toby watches Hannah as she leaves and returns, counting the minutes until she does. He counts her freckles as she treats him and notices that she is grieving someone. Toby makes it his mission to figure out who Hannah is, and he turns it into a game. When Hannah brings cards one day, Toby challenges her to play and agrees to be silent for two days if she wins.

Part 2, Chapter 7 Summary

Toby can’t help but appreciate Hannah’s strong yet delicate features and consistently calm attitude. When she asks him to stop calling her by the nickname “Hannah the Same Backward As Forward,” Toby offers another card game wager. Hannah loses, and Toby gets to keep using the nickname. When Hannah mentions the poison tree that Toby talks about in his sleep, Toby gets the sense that it means more than just a dream.

Part 2, Chapter 8 Summary

Toby has another nightmare of being trapped in a chamber, and when he awakens, he finds himself alone for once. Overwhelmed by his excruciating pain, he attempts to get up and retrieve the pills, which he plans to take all of. Jackson finds him just before he falls to the ground and helps him back to the mattress. When Hannah returns, Toby is filled with relief at her presence. He starts to remember Blake’s poetry, but not the name of the poet.

Part 2, Chapter 9 Summary

Toby asks Jackson if the person Hannah is grieving had an addiction, but Jackson refuses to give him any information. Instead, he offers Toby a fresh piece of paper in exchange for some answers of his own. He asks Toby if he plans to hurt Hannah and points out that dying would do just that. Toby realizes what Jackson is saying and promises to stay alive.

Part 2, Chapter 10 Summary

Toby writes a message to Hannah, asking her if “everything hurts.” He has another nightmare about the stone chamber, and it occurs to him that he used to have a substance use disorder himself and that his withdrawal is making the pain worse. Through it all, he still sees Hannah.

Part 2, Chapter 11 Summary

Toby is grateful for some level of relief from the pain and spends his time folding paper sculptures. When Hannah starts shaving dead skin off Toby’s burns, she admits that she’s glad it’s hurting him, but Toby warns her that she will never satisfy that particular need.

Part 2, Chapter 12 Summary

Toby hates being weaned off the pain relievers and taunts Hannah throughout the process. She pushes him to stand up and start walking around, and he does so, though it is agonizing. She also brings Toby the lemons he requested, which he uses to write secret messages to her. When he sees the coin Hannah found in his wallet, instant panic envelops him as he once again remembers being trapped in a chamber, this time made of dirt.

Part 2, Chapter 13 Summary

Toby’s nightmares intensify; he dreams of Kaylie, fire, and himself holding a knife. When he wakes up, Jackson offers to get him more pills, but Toby declines, wanting to finally end his dependency. Sensing that Jackson lost a child, he asks how old the child was. Jackson answers that his son was lost at just three days old and that the mother was Eden, Hannah’s mother.

Part 2, Chapter 14 Summary

Toby starts to feel more alert and coherent and begins challenging Hannah to various word puzzles. He notices that sometimes she sits near him and watches as he sleeps. When Toby teaches Hannah the “two lines” game, he puts his hand on hers and is taken by how soft her skin is. When she wins, he’s happy for her.

Part 2, Chapter 15 Summary

Toby draws a circle with letters on Hannah’s hand, hoping its question will inspire her to think about her choice to hide in life. He knows that Hannah is meant for better things and hopes that she will see it, too.

Part 2, Chapter 16 Summary

Toby gloats as he watches Hannah struggle to solve the puzzle. She takes him outside for the first time, and it’s blinding at first, but with Hannah’s support, it all feels natural. They go out to the lighthouse, where Toby notices Hannah looking at him in a new way. She asks him what he remembers about his life, and Toby decides not to mention his dreams.

Part 2, Chapter 17 Summary

Toby wakes up the next day to find Jackson cooking breakfast. Jackson warns Toby not to get involved with Hannah, but Toby challenges him and ignores his advice.

Part 2, Chapter 18 Summary

Hannah solves the circle puzzle but objects to Toby’s characterization of her, and they end up in an argument. Toby tells Hannah that she hides herself and her emotions but is selfless, while Hannah tells Toby that he’s a coward. Toby wants to know why Hannah claims to hate him but doesn’t ask.

Part 2, Chapter 19 Summary

Toby allows Hannah her three days of silence. Hannah breaks the silence with food, telling Toby that they can play a game if he eats. Toby chooses Hangman because he wants to draw Hannah the way he sees her, in the hopes that she can see herself the way he does.

Part 2, Chapter 20 Summary

Toby cooks beans for Jackson, and as Jackson spends more and more time away, Toby starts working to become stronger. He does pull-ups and practices his balance, no matter how much it hurts.

Part 2, Chapter 21 Summary

Hannah solves the Hangman riddle and tells Toby that he’s going to walk with her out to the lighthouse. There, Toby cannot stop thinking about how much he loves Hannah and everything about her. When he moves in to kiss her, he’s shocked to find that she kisses him first. Hannah tells Toby about her family, and Toby starts to feel like there is no other answer but Hannah.

Part 2, Chapters 1-21 Analysis

As compared to Hannah’s perspective, Toby’s point of view is more visceral and raw; it blends intense emotion and attachment with introspection. His voice is evident in the kinds of figurative language and metaphor he uses: “The easiest way to take a chisel to the walls she’s erected around herself is to make a study of her—and enjoy doing it” (24). Where Hannah tends toward avoidance, Toby seeks direct and even confrontational action, as evidenced by the “chisel” metaphor. The difference is also evident in each character’s relationship to the games and word puzzles that function as a motif. Hannah (at least initially) uses games as a barrier; her wagers are efforts to distance herself from Toby, first by preventing him from talking at all and then by preventing him from using a nickname for her. By contrast, Toby approaches Hannah herself as a puzzle to solve and uses the games he initiates to get closer to her.


However, this direct side of Toby coincides with vulnerability, which his injuries heighten. His dreams, for instance, frequently contain chambers and mazes that imply past trauma while highlighting the gaps in his memory. Likewise, allusions to William Blake’s poetry, particularly the poison tree, foreshadow danger and reflect Toby’s growing awareness of inherited threats. In these circumstances, Toby recognizes Hannah as an anchor in his life—“Without her, existence is like sand in my mouth” (17)—and is even willing to expose himself to greater vulnerability for her benefit. His refusal to take additional pills and recognition of the consequences of his near overdose demonstrate his growth and desire to protect Hannah.


Indeed, Toby quickly becomes captivated by Hannah’s physical and emotional presence:


Eyes should be one color, maybe two. Hers are everything. Brown and blue and green and gray—rings of color like rings on a tree, their borders messy and blurring into one another, a line of deep blue around the rim of her iris, a golden-brown starburst around the pupil, and stormy gray and mossy green battling it out in between (3).


His attention to the nuances of Hannah’s eyes foreshadows his ability to discern novel parts of her character, including ones that Hannah herself is unaware of. During their games and conversations, for instance, he observes her grief and strength, which he then uses another game, Hangman, to reflect back to her, drawing Hannah as he sees her. Like Hannah’s perspective on the same episode, the moment frames love as an opportunity to see oneself through another’s eyes—part of How Love Reshapes Identity. Indeed, Toby eventually challenges Hannah directly regarding her tendency toward avoidance: “I tell her that I know that she feels things—deeply—and that watching her keep her emotions locked down feels like watching stormwater rise and rise behind a dam” (71). Like the portrait, his words ask Hannah to see herself as he sees her and thus to approach even her flaws through a compassionate lens.

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