In My Dreams I Hold A Knife

“Duquette Homecoming. I couldn’t pinpoint when it had become an obsession—gradually, perhaps, as my plan grew, solidified into a richly detailed vision.”

Jessica envisions returning to Duquette as the perfect person she could never be in college, but these obsessive visions become a way to hide the guilt she feels over Heather’s death. Though she has no memories from the night, the event haunts her as if her psyche knows she’s to blame.

“An even less endearing confession: sometimes—rarely, but sometimes—I felt I was perfect, or at least close.”

Her father’s failures exacerbate Jessica’s obsessive need to be perfect. Her desire to always be the best fuels her worst actions in the novel. Although she is filled with self-doubt, she sometimes convinces herself that she is the person that she thinks her father wants her to be.

“I didn’t want to be a sweetheart. How uninteresting, how pathetic. But I did want to be one of the good ones, which sounded like an exclusive club.”

This passage is another example of Jessica’s expectations of herself and how she wants to be seen by others. Being a “sweetheart” is too nice and too ordinary for her. At the beginning of the novel, her sense of self is so fragile that she allows it to be defined by what she believes other people are think about her.