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76. Pretending
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Everything, Everything, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Coming of Age
Trust and Lies
Family, Abuse, and Bravery
The Value of Experience
Summary
Analysis
Carla bustles in like nothing changed the next day. She pulls Maddy into a hug and says it’s all her fault. Maddy dissolves into tears for an hour. When she’s done crying, Carla asks about Mom. Maddy says that Mom doesn’t hate her, and Carla insists that mothers don’t know how to hate their children. Maddy says that she’s a terrible daughter. When Carla asks about Olly, Maddy refuses to say, thinking that if she can hold onto her pain, her heart will never heal and tempt her to use it again.
Once again, when Maddy feels comfortable sharing things with Carla and cries in front of her, it reflects the fact that Carla has made herself an available, trustworthy, and kind mentor to Maddy—and so she gets a more unfiltered view of what Maddy is going through. Mom, because she expects something very particular, doesn’t see as much of Maddy’s internal struggle.
Themes
Things settle back into a routine until one day, Maddy hears a rumble and a beeping. At the window, Carla says that a moving truck has pulled in next door. The two men talk to Olly’s mom, but Olly’s dad isn’t around. Maddy joins Carla at the window and watches Olly, Kara, and their mom frantically carry out boxes. Olly hugs his mom often and Kara smokes openly. Olly realizes that Maddy is watching him and looks up. Maddy feels like the moment their eyes meet is different than the first time. Then, everything felt possible and she knew she’d love him. Now, she knows she loves him and won’t stop. He waves, but Maddy turns away. She thinks that if she could undo the last few months, she’d hear him moving in and stay on her white couch with her books.
Though seeing Olly and his mother and sister leave is painful for Maddy, it’s worth commending Olly’s mom for making the choice to escape. This could’ve been a very dangerous situation had Olly’s dad realized what was going on or just decided to come home early, which makes it clear that making changes like this require intense bravery and a willingness to risk one’s health and safety in the hope that doing so will lead to a better situation in the future.
Themes
