I Will Save You

“I imagine her looking down from heaven right now. Her only son in solitary confinement, being tortured. And I see from her expression how heartbroken she is. Tears running makeup stains down her cheeks and her chin quivering and her eyes so sad.”

Kidd believes himself to be in prison, and because he is strapped down in the dark, he also believes that he is being tortured. His mind wanders to his mother. He imagines her disappointment and sadness at what he has done. His concern suggests how much he loved and respected her, for even after her death he seeks her approval.

“I laid in my tent that night, on top of my sleeping bag, writing my first-ever philosophy about how people are asleep even when they’re awake and about seeing colors and being on autopilot. I addressed it to myself, like a letter to me, thinking I could read it later on and remember all the important things I learned from Mr. Red.”

After hearing Red’s philosophy about how people sleepwalk through life, Kidd purchases a notebook to write down what he learns. Addressing each entry as a letter to himself, Kidd anticipates needing this important advice later, a foreshadowing. Most of his reflections so far are in response to Red, which indicates how much Kidd respects the man.

“You can never forget the serious look on Mom’s face that night. Like she knew she was wrong to let him in, and she knew something bad was about to happen, something that would change things forever.”

Kidd recalls the night his mother let his dad in despite the restraining order she had against him. As Kidd watches his dad beg for money, he notices the look on his mother’s face, which foreshadows the abuse she will endure moments later. T Kidd describes her look as knowing what the future holds, suggesting his belief in fate and the idea that it was destined for his mother to let his father in.

“Way I see it, Kidd, communication is the key. You can be anything you want in this country as long as you’re honest about it.”

Red tells Kidd that he is not monogamous, meaning he dates multiple women. He tells Kidd the value of honesty, and that it will take a person far. Red is portrayed as someone who does what they say, and models transparency and authenticity when he reveals the nature of his relationship with women.

“Here’s the thing about him. Even though he constantly smiles and talks loud and everybody thinks he’s so much fun to be around, really he suffers from depression.”

When Devon reappears in Kidd’s life after two years, Kidd describes him as outwardly friendly, but inwardly suffering. This highlights how struggles with mental health are not always visible to others. Kidd’s observations are detached, even though he is actually describing himself. This suggests that Kidd does not see depression as something he struggles with.

“I didn’t tell Devon about my sleepwalking ‘cause I knew he’d remember how I used to do it at Horizons. And he’d say how those therapists obviously didn’t do such a great job fixing me after all.”

Sleepwalking is a physical manifestation of Kidd’s mental health struggles. What Kidd anticipates Devon would say is how Kidd really feels himself—that he is still broken.

“Then he went on and on about how the rich kids in Cardiff all got stuff from their parents and since we didn’t have parents we had to take stuff for ourselves.

‘I’m not gonna sit here waiting for somebody to come along and make things fair,’ he told me, shaking his head. ‘Hell no. I’m gonna make fair happen for myself.’”

After stealing clothes, Devon reveals that he could have paid for everything. Through Devon, Kidd vocalizes his justification for theft and indignation at the privileges those with money possess. Devon, the impulsive, dangerous side of him, insists that no one is changing things. Therefore, he will do what it takes to get justice.

“After a while I realized I was no longer walking in the middle of everyone, I was by myself. But I didn’t care. For the first time in forever I felt like I was normal, like my mom always said I could be. Not a Horizons resident. Or a troubled teen. Or an at-risk case.”

When Kidd accompanies a group of kids on a midnight walk, he feels a sense of belonging. Kidd’s longing for acceptance is heightened by his traumatic past and mental health struggles, which make him feel different and inferior. The mention of his mom indicates the lasting impact of her love and encouragement even after her death.

“What the train sounds like when you see it coming from far away. The whistle sounding. The vibration of the tracks under your feet. The power it had going past, like a million car engines combined, the wind pressing your face and the roar and me thinking who was in there and if they were going where their family was.”

Kidd remembers everything he loved about being free. One of these things is the speed and power of an oncoming train. This parallels Devon, who is fast and dangerous. Devon also plays chicken with oncoming trains, standing on the tracks until the last moment only to jump off. This passage also implies how much Kidd wishes for a family, for he imagines the passengers on their way to visit relatives.

“Like I’m Superman I hold my hands in front of me and watch the world move underneath. And what if I really was super in some way? If I could save all the people from their depression. Kids and parents stuck inside sad dreams, alone in their beds, wishing they were someone else, someone better.”

In a dream, as Kidd floats across town, he envisions being like Superman—not just in the way he flies above the world, but also in saving people from sadness and depression. This represents Kidd’s desire to be compassionate. Unlike Devon, he does not want others to suffer as he has.

“He forced a little smile, even though his eyes were on fire, and he told me: I will save you.”

In another dream, Olivia explains how boys harassed her and Kidd one night and that Kidd said “‘I will save you’” before he fought them. A nod to the title, Kidd’s statement is ironic. Although his intent is to save Olivia, he is the one who needs to be saved from his own struggles, violent side, and self-doubt.

“‘I’m tired,’ I said, feeling like I was gonna throw up. ‘Cause Mr. Red just didn’t know me yet. Soon he’d figure out how wrong he was.’”

As Kidd is in the ocean’s riptide with Devon’s voice in his head, he thinks of Red’s encouragement to be anything he wants. Kidd’s self-loathing is strong. Instead of considering that Red’s words might be true, he worries about Red discovering that Kidd is a fraud. Kidd’s exhaustion is not just due to physical exertion in the water, but also because of the mental effort of constantly grappling with self-doubt.

“But here’s why you have to remember that night when Devon came in. Because fate brought him when you couldn’t read the letter for yourself.”

When Kidd reflects on “meeting” Devon, he determines that it was meant to be. Devon was able to do what Kidd could not: read the letter from Kidd’s mother. Kidd implies that Devon’s presence in his mind was inevitable and even necessary. This directly contradicts his therapist’s directives to rid himself of Devon, which explains one of the reasons why Kidd is so conflicted.

“Him breaking my nose when he hit me with the back of his hand. Then hugging me and saying he didn’t mean it. And how we both told my mom I fell.”

Kidd’s memory of his father demonstrates that Kidd not only observed his father’s abuse but was a victim of it. After getting hit, Kidd receives a hug from his dad and lies to his mother. This represents Kidd’s conflicted feelings about his dad. He recognizes how violent and abusive his dad was but struggles to reconcile that with moments where the man showed love. The novel implies that it is possible to love someone who hurts you.

“I believe it’s already determined what we’re gonna do. No matter what choices we make, it still leads back to how it’s supposed to happen.”

One night, Kidd follows Devon beneath a bridge where Devon is talking with an unhoused woman and girl. Just prior to this, Devon expressed his fear that he would hurt someone because it is embedded in his DNA. Devon believes that even when it seems like a person has a choice, they do not. His unwavering belief in fate is debilitating and excuses poor choices. If he were to hurt a person, his rationalization would be that it was fated.

“Soon I could see the shadow of waves before they hit me, and I’d duck-dive under like Mr. Red taught me—which is where you push the nose of your board down and purposely go under and let the wave break over you.”

As Kidd paddles out to the kelp beds at night, he learns to maneuver the waves in the dark. Kidd’s adaptation to the water represents his navigation of life’s challenges. Kidd eventually sees “the shadow of the waves before they hit,” symbolizing the anticipation of events. When Kidd can predict the wave or the challenge, he can properly prepare himself to endure it, like diving beneath the wave with his board. Later, Kidd has an ominous feeling that something will happen with Devon. Anticipating it, he plans to confront his friend instead of just allowing whatever it is to happen.

“I thought about why two people would jump off a cliff together. It seemed like the worst possible way to die, slamming into rocks, breaking their backs landing on the sand.”

Kidd and Olivia sit atop a cliff at Torrey Pines State Beach. She tells him how the previous year two kids died by suicide by jumping from this spot together. Kidd’s reflection is a foreshadowing. When Kidd pushes Devon off the cliff, he is jumping himself, an act he cannot fathom here.

“I realized I was touching what hurt Olivia the most, what made her feel sad and less real than other people. And that’s exactly how I felt, ever since my mom left and I found her letter, and in this small way me and Olivia were the same.”

After Olivia tells Kidd about her skin condition, they both cry as he traces the mark on her face. Kidd feels empathy because he has a scar—albeit an internal one— that hurts similarly, causing sadness and self-loathing. Kidd feels more connected to Olivia when he recognizes that they are alike “in this small way.”

“Now it was pouring rain on us, water raining down on water, all around us, the sound like somebody telling my brain to ‘shhh,’ thick drops washing away my mom’s letter and washing away Olivia’s mark, making us both new and real and meaningful.”

As Kidd and Olivia kiss, he senses the world change around him. What he describes is not literal, but how things feel when his senses are heightened by her touch. The water that falls on them quiets his brain—his memories, thoughts, self-doubt, sadness—and cleanses him. He imagines that the water rids him of his mother’s letter and cleans off Olivia’s mark. In this way, water represents purification and rebirth. The kiss fills him with more happiness than he has ever experienced, suggesting that human connection has the power to heal.

“‘The fact is,’ she said, ‘you probably will mess up at some point, right? The trick is to regroup. Learn from your mistakes. Trust you’ll get past it. Eventually.’”

Maria, Kidd’s counselor at Horizons, calms him with this advice. She normalizes mistakes, alleviating some of his fear. Her use of the words “trust” and “eventually” indicate the need for Kidd to be patient with himself as he heals and tries to restart.

“I watched him take another long drink and then turn to the ocean. You couldn’t see the big waves in the dark, but you could hear them. The thunder sound of water crashing on water.”

When Kidd finds Red sitting on the cliff, drinking alcohol on his son’s birthday, Kidd describes the ominous sound of the ocean. He labels the sound as “thunder” and notes that he cannot see the waves, foreshadowing the storm of Red’s relapse and his decision to protect Olivia from Devon.

“I thought about our similarities. How we had scars. But then I thought how she was gonna go fix hers. And mine would still be there. I could picture Devon saying that’s how come we weren’t really the same. She’d always have money to fix things, he’d say. And since people like me and him had nothing, our scars would be forever.”

As Olivia and Kidd wait for the grunion to arrive, the above thoughts creep into Kidd’s mind. Initially, Kidd draws comfort in knowing that he is not the only one with scars, but then becomes fixated on how Olivia can pay to have hers removed while he cannot. He draws a line between Olivia and himself, and when he sees Devon in his mind, he feels anger rising within him. This manifests in his hallucination of Devon on the beach below.

“And when I turn my head to the side, to look at the stranded ship, it’s no longer a ship, it’s a framed picture of me squatting on the campsite fence. And when I look down at the seaweed lying on the beach sand, it’s no longer seaweed but the black-and-white pattern of a tile floor. And the stairs going up the cliff are no longer stairs but a design on the wall.”

Kidd’s dream shifts to reality when he wakes up in a hospital room. His description emphasizes that the setting of his dreams has been fabricated—the beach by the campsites—but the people and conversations have happened by his bedside. Consequently, the words of love and support have been true, not invented by his mind.