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Every Day
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BetaChapters 13-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary: “Day 6006”
Rhiannon sends a message saying that she has called Kelsea’s house to check on her. No one is home, so Rhiannon thinks it’s a good sign, and that her father got Kelsea help. She also sends A a link to yet another Nathan story, mentioning others who are claiming demonic possession. A sends Nathan a quick email, saying, “I am not the devil” (141).
Today A is Hugo, and his boyfriend, Austin, is taking him to Annapolis for the Gay Pride parade. A is distracted because s/he keeps thinking about Rhiannon, Nathan, and the other lives s/he has recently lived in: Kelsea, James, Tom, Roger. A is starting to hold on to the past, making it hard to be fully present in the different bodies s/he inhabits.
But it’s a beautiful day, and Austin is so excited as he holds Hugo’s hand for the parade. There are some protestors at the event, which baffles A: “I don’t understand this at all. It’s like protesting the fact that some people are red-haired. In my experience, desire is desire, love is love” (142).
During the festivities, however, Austin is noticing A’s lack of attention and gets upset. A is scared that Austin is going to break up with Hugo, and A fears it might be his/her fault, even though it’s clear that the relationship may have already been in jeopardy prior to today. Still, A does not want to be responsible for a break-up, so A apologizes profusely to Austin and does his/her best to act more attentively. A pulls Austin into a kiss and is a good boyfriend for the rest of the day.
Before A goes to bed, A checks their email and gets a response from Nathan: “Prove it” (147).
Chapter 14 Summary: “Day 6007”
The next day A is a beautiful African-American girl, Ashley Ashton. When Rhiannon picks A up, she laughs at the transformation, shocked at A’s gorgeous, Beyonce-like appearance. But the conversation turns more serious when they start to walk through the woods and talk about the future. Rhiannon says the two of them can never be together because she can’t imagine being in a relationship with a person who always is changing. While A insists it’s still A, underneath all of the different people, Rhiannon insists that appearances are important, and she can’t imagine being with someone as stunningly beautiful as Ashley Ashton.
Rhiannon also reminds A that she already has a boyfriend, even though A insists Justin is not good enough for her. A gives Rhiannon an idea to test Justin by having him meet and interact with the irresistible Ashley Ashton, and Rhiannon jumps on the idea, making plans for the three of them to go to dinner.
Until dinner, A continues to talk about his/her past, and how hard it was leaving every family A ever had. A tried having an online relationship with someone she liked, Brennan, but eventually A had to end it because Brennan wanted to get together in person: “Because what’s the point of something virtual if it doesn’t end up being real?” (158).
At dinner, Justin is shocked by Ashley’s beauty, and when A flirts with him, he seems too stunned to flirt back. When Rhiannon leaves the table, A goes even further, suggesting they should do something, “just the two of us” (162). This backfires when Justin angrily rejects these advances. When Rhiannon returns, he complains to her about Ashley. Rhiannon tells A that this was a bad idea and that A is incapable of understanding her feelings for Justin.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Day 6008”
A checks online the next day, but there is no email from Rhiannon. A sees that Nathan is getting more press, even catching the attention of the satirical magazine The Onion. As AJ, a sports fanatic, A has many friends, and so A tries to lose him/herself in AJ’s busy life. A is then surprised to see Nathan at AJ’s school; A wants to talk to him. Since AJ used to be friends with Nathan, A doesn’t think it will catch too much notice to sit together at lunch.
As they talk, A brings up Reverend Poole and the possession. A can see that Nathan really does want to talk about what happened, while obviously having no idea who he is really talking to. Listening to Nathan’s fear, A realizes his/her own potential to do harm. A could commit the perfect crime in the body of someone else and never be caught: “But then I think, Stop. I think, No. Because, really, does that make me any different from everyone else? Yes, I could get away with it, but certainly we all have the potential to commit the crime. We choose not to” (171).
Chapters 13-15 Analysis
A’s desire to connect and use his/her person’s body for A’s own purposes creates more conflict in these chapters. First, A’s distractions over Rhiannon and A’s past lives almost cause the breakup between his person, Hugo, and Hugo’s boyfriend, Austin. Then, as Ashley, A uses his/her beauty to test Justin’s fidelity, trying to lure him into a betrayal of Rhiannon’s love, which backfires. And then there is Nathan: A does his/her best to try to persuade Nathan to think of his situation differently, hoping to stop Nathan’s incessant search for the truth, which could lead to dire consequences for A. But Nathan holds strongly to his beliefs, even getting A to wonder about A’s own capacity for evil.
Ironically, pursuing his/her own desires in these chapters leads A to embrace the roles of his/her host bodies even more. When Austin gets frustrated with Hugo’s lack of attention, A must fully embrace the role of the good boyfriend. When A wants to prove that Justin doesn’t really love Rhiannon, A must fully embrace Ashley’s attractiveness and sexuality, in order to attempt to lure Justin in. And when A wants to change Nathan’s mind, he must fully embrace the role of friend, in order to get Nathan to talk. A must fully inhabit and pay attention to the host body and not simply go through the motions. Even though A often insists that the differences of the body are not as important as the mind’s feelings and thoughts, in these chapters, to be persuasive, A must focus on those differences.
At the parade, A runs into protestors who see nothing but difference. They can’t see the 98% similarity that humans share with each other. Their focus on the 2% makes their whole mindset rigid, only allowing them to see us and them. They want to demonize difference because they don’t understand it, and, therefore, are afraid of it.
Of course, when A is Ashley, A’s 2% difference is also quickly noticed and objectified. Her beauty renders her “untouchable” (151). Rhiannon complains that Ashley is “too perfect” (153). But A wryly notes, “With girls like Ashley, I just want to shake them, and tell them that no matter how hard they fight it, these teenage looks aren’t going to last forever, and that there are much better foundations to build a life upon than how attractive you are” (149). Ashley has worked hard to make her 2% surface difference stand out, and A sees that as a waste of time. A prefers inhabiting bodies that don’t call attention to themselves because then A can focus on the similarities.
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