67 pages • 2 hours read
Every Last Word
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Chapters 1-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: "Six Months Earlier"
Set in California, the novel begins with a brief glimpse from February, six months prior to the start of the bulk of the narrative. Written from the first-person perspective of Samantha, a junior in a high school and the protagonist of the novel, the opening scene takes place at Samantha’s house as Hailey, Olivia, Alexis, Kaitlyn, and Samantha gather to prepare for their school’s Valentine’s Day fundraiser. The girls form an assembly line to prepare the roses that will accompany the valentines. One person cuts the stem from the rose, another attaches a card, another attaches a ribbon, and so on. With Samantha responsible for cutting the end of the stem from each rose, she is holding scissors when she experiences an unwanted thought, which is a key feature of her OCD:
I grab a rose out of the bucket and pick the scissors up off the floor. The instant I slide my fingers through the handles, this thought hits me out of nowhere, and before I have time to react I feel my brain sink its teeth in and latch on tight, already preparing to fight me for it. My hand starts trembling and my mouth goes dry (4).
Samantha struggles to keep the thought at bay, thinking:“Breathe. Find a new thought”(4) and other mantras meant to stave off unwanted thoughts. Still, the thought persists. No matter what she does, she cannot resist wanting to take the scissors to her friend Olivia’s hair and cut her ponytail off.
As Samantha’s alarm increases, she flees from her room where the girls are gathered and runs to the kitchen where she can have a moment to herself. Samantha buries her face in her hands and sits in front of the refrigerator. Her mother can tell exactly what is happening and leaps into immediate action. She advises Samantha that she is in control, and that her thoughts are only thoughts. With her mother’s help, Samantha is able to calm herself down: “I sit alone for a long time, taking deep breaths. I still can’t look at the scissors on the far end of the kitchen floor, and I’m pretty sure Mom will hide all sharp objects for the next few days, but I’m okay now” (9).
Chapter 2 Summary: "More Than Anything"
The narrative moves from February to the present. It is August and Samantha is at a summer swim practice. She is about to leap into the water, perched on her starting block in her usual lane: “Lane three. It’s always lane number three. My coaches think it's funny. Quirky[...]That’s all I want them to know” (13). Samantha plunges into the water and “everything feels right” (14).
When she completes her set, she sees that she shaved four-tenths of a second off her best time. Brandon, a junior coach of the swim team, congratulates Samantha on a job well done. Samantha has a crush on Brandon and, as he is speaking to her, she begins to fantasize about kissing him there on the poolside: “My hands leave his hips and find his back, and I feel his muscles tense beneath my palms as he tips his head down and kisses me” (16). When she snaps out of the fantasy, Brandon begins advising her on how, if she continues to do perform well at swimming, she will have her choice of college scholarships.
With summer ending, Samantha’s swimming friend Cassidy remarks that she will miss Samantha when school begins. Samantha does not react well to this statement, because she feels as though she is a different, better person during the summer: “My stomach clenches into a tight fist as she voices a thought that’s been haunting me since the first day of August. Like all my summer friends, Cassidy has never known me outside the pool” (19). When she returns to school, Samantha will turn into a different person, someone she likes less than “Summer Sam,” as her therapist refers to her summer self.
Chapter 3 Summary: "Five of Us"
It is the morning of the first day of school and Samantha is nervous to be reunited with her classmates. She stands in the kitchen with her mother, showing her back-to-school outfit: “I’m wearing a sheer top over a white camisole, skinny jeans, and the wedges I begged Mom to buy me” (20).
Samantha gets into her Honda Civic to drive to school, when she receives a text from her friend Alexis, asking for a ride to school. Samantha says she can't give her a ride but does not reveal the real reason to Alexis. Samantha is unable to drive with anyone, not because she does not want to, but because to drive with Samantha would be to reveal her OCD rituals. Because Samantha’s OCD dictates that she is obsessed with the number three, whenever she drives, she must make sure that her odometer lands on a number that ends in three. This means that she, at times, will need to drive around her school parking lot or ride around the block until the odometer is just right.
Samantha arrives at school to find that her locker has been wrapped in bright blue paper with a giant silver bow tied around the middle. Samantha’s core friend group—Alexis, Kaitlyn, Hailey, and Olivia, who are collectively known as the “Crazy Eights”—approach Samantha, wishing her a happy birthday. Samantha recalls how there used to be eight members in her friend group, but now they are down to five, what with one friend moving away and another leaving the Crazy Eights to join the drama club.
Alexis brings up the issue of Samantha not giving her a ride to school this morning, which causes a major spike in Samantha’s anxiety. As a panic attack begins to mount, the Crazy Eights depart Samantha’s locker for class, leaving Samantha alone. Samantha is in the midst of a calming deep breathing exercise when she hears a voice from a nearby locker: “That was really nice” (26). The voice, as it turns out, is coming from Caroline Madsen, who introduces herself to Samantha. Caroline is dressed in baggy faded jeans, hiking boots, and a flannel shirt. Caroline goes on to say that the Crazy Eights wrapping Samantha’s locker was a nice gesture.
Chapter 4 Summary: "Keep a Secret"
Samantha and the rest of the Crazy Eights eat lunch beneath a tree in the quad. Alexis announces that she has something important to tell them about her upcoming birthday party that weekend: The group had intended to go to a spa in Napa, but it turns out that Alexis’s mother could only get three appointments, meaning that two members of the Crazy Eights will not be able to attend. Alexis tells the group that Kaitlyn and Olivia will join her at the spa since out of all of them Alexis has known those two since preschool. When the issue of Samantha’s driving comes up, and why she can’t drive Hailey and herself to meet the rest of the Crazy Eights after the spa for lunch, it triggers another panic attack in Samantha, and she leaves the quad, making the excuse that her lab partner needs notes from her right away.
Samantha flees to the school’s theater, where she can be alone. Her panic starts to subside in the darkness of the theater, but she soon realizes she is not alone: “The bell rings and I’m about to get up and head for class, when I hear voices. I crouch down lower, watching a group of people walk across the stage, talking to each other in hushed tones” (33). The group of people go to exit the auditorium, when Samantha realizes Caroline is among the group. When Caroline spots Samantha crouching in the theater, she plops down beside Samantha in one of the auditorium seats. Caroline sees that Samantha is upset and tries to find out what is the matter, hazarding a guess that it is because of the Crazy Eights: “‘Let me guess.’ She taps her finger against her temple. ‘Your locker-wrapping best friends are actually manipulative bitches?’” (34). Samantha nods, confirming that this is the reason she is upset. For some reason unbeknownst to Samantha, she finds herself opening up to Caroline. When Caroline asks why Samantha sees a psychiatrist, Samantha responds truthfully: “Apparently I’m not keeping secrets from [Caroline], because words start spilling out on their own. ‘OCD. I’m more obsessive than compulsive, so most of the ‘disorder’ part takes place in my own head. That makes it pretty easy to hide. No one knows.’ I can’t believe I’m saying this out loud” (35). Samantha tells Caroline everything about her OCD: that she latches onto thoughts and cannot let them go; that she gets anxiety attacks; and that she is obsessed with the number three. She also admits to being on anti-anxiety meds and having insomnia, due to the incessant stream of thoughts. Samantha hides her OCD from the Crazy Eights—Caroline is the first friend with whom she’s been able to have an intimate and honest discussion. Feeling good about this interaction, Samantha asks Caroline if she would like to come to Samantha’s place on Saturday for a movie. That is the day of Alexis’s birthday party, but since Samantha is no longer invited to the spa, she will be free.
Before they depart the theater, Caroline says that she wants to help Samantha and asks her if she can keep a secret. Samantha says that of course she can. Caroline says that she wants to show her something: “I’m going to show you something that will change your whole life”(38). Caroline then points to the piano at the corner of the theater stage and instructs Caroline to meet her there at lunchtime on Thursday. She instructs Samantha not to say a word to anyone and to hide on one side of the curtain until Caroline comes to get her.
Chapter 5 Summary: "In the Deep"
Samantha attends her usual Wednesday weekly therapy session with her psychiatrist Sue: “[Sue] sits in the chair across from me and hands me my ‘thinking putty.’ It’s supposed to take my mind off the words I’m saying and give me something to do with my hands so I don’t spend the entire fifty-minute session scratching the back of my neck in threes” (41).
Sue asks where Samantha would like to begin this week’s session, and Samantha thinks to herself that she does not want to discuss the Crazy Eights and Alexis’s upcoming birthday spa party. Instead, Samantha begins by saying that she made a new friend and tells Sue a little about Caroline: “Well, she’s not like any of the Crazy Eights[...]She’s kind of awkward, but she’s nice. I barely know her, but I already think she sort of...gets me” (42). Sue perks up at the mention of a new friend, as she has been encouraging Samantha to ditch the toxic circle of the Crazy Eights for years. Samantha also informs Sue that the rest of the Crazy Eights cannot know about Caroline, because they might kick her out of the group, if so. At the mere thought of being rejected from the Crazy Eights, Samantha’s eyes begin to well up with tears, and Sue changes the subject, asking Samantha if she has had the chance to print out the pictures. Samantha did, and she pulls out three photographs from her bag. Each of the photographs is from Samantha’s swim team, and Sue asks Samantha to tape them to the inside of her locker at school to remind her of her goal of getting a swim scholarship.
Chapters 1-5 Analysis
In the opening pages, the reader is immediately taken into the world of Samantha’s OCD. In the first chapter, Samantha experiences a panic attack, and based on her mother’s reaction to the incident, it is clear that this is not a new problem: “The two of us have been here before. It hasn’t happened in a long time, not like this, but Mom slips right into her assigned role as if it’s second nature. She’s well trained” (7).
The idea that Samantha is irreparably damaged or “crazy” haunts her. More frightening than any one particular thought brought about by her OCD, the most terrifying of all is the underlying belief that she will never be normal: “Still, I can hear this one thought hiding in the dark corners of my mind. It doesn’t attack like the others, but it’s frightening in a totally different way. Because it’s the one that never leaves. And it’s the one that scares me the most” (9). The thought does not “attack” in the same way as a persistent OCD thought, but it is an ever-present threat that undermines Samantha’s efforts to get better.
In Chapter 2, the reader sees how, with OCD, the difference between thoughts and reality are not always easily distinguishable. Thoughts, particularly the “bad” OCD ones, can easily feel like reality for Samantha. The author writes the scene in which Samantha fantasizes about her swim coach Brandon in a way that makes it seem like the event is truly happening: “His mouth is warm and he parts his lips, and oh my God, this is finally happening, and even though there are people everywhere and I keep hearing the whistle blow and the coaches calling out behind me, I don’t care, because right now I just want to—” (16). Until Brandon interrupts Samantha’s train of thought, the reader believes that Samantha is engaged in kissing him. In this way, mere thoughts become as real to the reader as they are to Samantha—it is a way of making the reader comprehend how real Samantha’s OCD feels to Samantha.
The idea of Samantha’s bifurcated self is also introduced in the first few chapters. There are two distinct sides to Samantha’s personality, and she refers to one as “Samantha” and another as “Sam.” Sam appears during summer, Samantha during the school year. Sam is the part of Samantha’s personality that she regards as her true self. Sam swims daily and has her OCD under control. Samantha, on the other hand, is a member of the Crazy Eights, is superficial, and must work hard to hide her OCD. With summer ending, she reflects on what this will mean: “I’ll be Samantha again. And more than anything, I’ll be missing Sam” (19). With summer over, Samantha is nervous to leave “Sam” behind and resume her life as a student: “Mom’s wearing that encouraging smile she always plasters on when she knows I’m nervous” (21).
The character of Caroline is introduced in Chapter 3. From the start, it is apparent that Caroline is different from the Crazy Eights and unlike any other friend Samantha has had. Caroline instantly refers to Samantha as “Sam,” a nickname that Samantha has had trouble getting the Crazy Eights to accept, even though she has reminded them on multiple occasions. The implication is that Caroline is a true friend, as opposed to a superficial one. From the start, Samantha feels able to tell Caroline anything, even about her OCD, which she has gone to great lengths to hide from the rest of her high school peers, including the Crazy Eights. When Samantha tells her, she is accepting of Samantha’s condition: “Caroline’s looking at me as if this whole thing is completely fascinating. She leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees, exactly the way my psychiatrist does when she wants me to keep talking. So I do” (35).
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