Just Listen

“One open, one closed. It was no wonder that the first image that came to mind when I thought of either of my sisters was a door. With Kirsten, it was the front one to our house, through which she was always coming in or out, usually in mid-sentence, a gaggle of friends trailing behind her. Whitney’s was the one to her bedroom, which she preferred to keep shut between her and the rest of us, always.

As for me, I fell somewhere between my sisters and their strong personalities, the very personification of the vast gray area that separated them. I was not bold and outspoken, or silent and calculating.”

The contrast between Annabel and her sisters and her perspective about their personalities on a spectrum reveals deep characterization and Annabel’s authentic voice. Through her unique perspective, readers are introduced to the idea of a middle ground and rejecting dichotomies. Owen later explains to Annabel that he believes in the “middle,” of not fighting with an either/or way of thinking in life. Annabel represents this middle, the balancing force, between her sisters.

“I felt my stomach physically drop, as if from a great height, straight down. Everything narrowed, the sounds around me falling away as my palms sprang into sweat, my heartbeat loud in my ears, thump thump thump. I could not stop staring at him. [Will] was just sitting there, one hand on the wheel [...] After a second, he shook his head, irritated.

Shhh, Annabel. It’s just me.

[...] And while I told myself that in the broad daylight I could be strong and fearless, I felt as helpless as that night, as if even in the wide open, the bright light of day, I still wasn’t safe.”

Annabel’s reactions to her assaulter, Will, when she sees him for the first time afterward, are indicative of the trauma she endured. Dessen portrays her trauma symptoms as bodily reactions, the instant stress she experiences physically, mentally, and emotionally when faced with her rapist. Though readers aren’t aware of how Will harmed Annabel yet, her reaction to him is a visceral, negative one that builds tension and conflict. This scene is also the first instance of the symbolic repeated line, “Shhh, Annabel. It’s just me.” This line turns from Will’s dialogue during her sexual assault to representing her listening to herself.

“[Grace] was a quiet woman, soft-spoken, with a kind face—the sort of person you’d look for if you were out in public somewhere and something bad happened, an instant comfort. I’d always relied on my mom to be just that, exactly as she had always been, which was why the change in her in the weeks following my grandmother’s funeral was so strange. She just got…quieter. Still. There was suddenly something haunted and tired about her face, so obvious that even I, at nine, could see it. At first, my dad just assured us that it was the normal grief process, that my mother was tired, and she’d be fine. But as time went on, she didn’t get better. Instead, she started sleeping later, and then later, until she sometimes didn’t get out of bed at all.”

Annabel’s mother, Grace, becomes depressed after her mother dies, a loss that causes her to turn inward and become silent and isolated. After her traumatic rape, Annabel parallels her mother’s quiet and isolation. Both of their reactions to major, negative events highlight the themes of silence and change. In a short space, Dessen describes Grace’s past depression with key details and descriptions through Annabel’s young perspective.

“‘Dad, you don’t understand,’ [Kirsten] told him. ‘This is serious. Whitney has an eating disorder. If she doesn’t get help, she’ll—’

‘Shut up!’ Whitney shrieked, her voice suddenly shrill. ‘Just shut up!’

This eruption was so startling—we were only used to Kirsten freaking out, ever—that we all just stood there for a second, as if gauging whether it had really happened. [...] I saw my mother’s face flush, embarrassed.”

Whitney’s uncharacteristic screaming in the airport shows her intense need to keep her secret, relating to themes of silence, perspectives of truth and lies, and Appearances Versus Reality—especially because she sees herself as fat when she’s dangerously underweight. Whitney hides her extremely thin body under large clothes and the truth of her struggle from her family. Only Kirsten knows the truth and doesn’t fall for Whitney’s lies about just being tired from work and losing some weight due to the fierce modeling competition. The dialogue shows Kirsten trying to present the truth, but Whitney denies it and considers her sister’s tattling inaccurate.

“Bones and knobs. Every bump of [Whitney’s] spine protruding and visible. Her ribs poked out at angles, her knees were skinny and pale. It seemed impossible that she could be so thin and still be alive, and even more so that she’d been able to somehow hide this. As she shifted again, though, I saw it, the one thing that would stick with me forever: the sharpness of her shoulder blades as they rose out of her skin, looking like the wings of a dead baby bird I’d once found in our backyard, hairless and barely born, already broken.”

The conflict of Annabel finding her sister naked on the bathroom floor, passed out and barely breathing, scares her and remains in her memory forever. The description of Whitney as frail and the significant metaphor of her shoulders like the wings of a dead baby bird make this scene immersive, memorable, and poignant by relating her disorder and unhealthy state to being broken and unable to fly without help. Annabel helps this “bird” in the moment by shouting for her parents and starting Whitney’s journey to recovery in the hospital.

“Her hand moved to my collar, pulling it down to check the tag. ‘It is! I knew it. Oh my God, I want a Lanoler sweater so bad. I have forever—’

‘Mallory,’ Owen said, ‘don’t be a label whore.’

Mallory dropped her hand. ‘Owen!’ she said. ‘R and R.’

Owen gave her a look in the rearview. Then he sighed, loudly. ‘What I mean to say, Mallory,’ he said, sounding pained, ‘is that your focus on labels and material goods troubles me.’

‘Thank you,’ she replied. ‘And I understand and appreciate your concern. But, as you know, fashion is my life.’

I looked at Owen. ‘R and R?’

‘Rephrase and Redirect,’ Mallory told me. ‘It’s part of his Anger Management. If he says something inflammatory, you can tell him it hurts your feelings, and he has to say it another way.’”

Dessen’s use of dialogue amongst three characters—Annabel, Owen, and his younger sister Mallory—builds their characters and Owen’s backstory. The author introduces new terminology, such as Rephrase and Redirect, to portray Owen’s anger issues and anger therapy, a term Annabel and Owen use multiple times with each other later. Mallory touching Annabel’s tag is implied to make her uncomfortable, as shown by Mallory interrupting Annabel’s speech. Annabel learns more about Owen and his family, and she gains insight into the main messages in the novel about anger, silence, and speaking up.

‘So you’re always honest,’ I said.

‘Aren’t you?’

‘No,’ I told him. This came so easily, so quickly, it should have surprised me. But for some reason, it didn’t. [...] ‘I don’t…” I said, then trailed off, not sure exactly how to put this. ‘I just don’t like to hurt people. Or upset them. So sometimes, you know, I won’t say exactly what I think, to spare them that.’ The ironic thing was that saying this out loud was actually the most honest I’d been in ages. If not ever.

‘But that’s still a lie,’ he said. ‘Even if you mean well.’”

Though Annabel tries to deny the rumors about her shared by Sophie, Owen hasn’t heard about her and Will, and he reveals he doesn’t lie because it fuels his anger if he does. The theme of perspectives on truth and lies reveals itself fully in this scene, which also shows Annabel’s motives for avoiding conflict. She has negative associations with telling the truth because of her sisters’ feuding and her rape when Sophie wouldn’t believe her side of the story. Owen’s brutal honesty inspires Annabel throughout the novel, starting with this conversation, as he sees even white lies with good intentions as immoral.

“‘Just talking alone, at a party, in a room with no one else, is not just talking,’ she snapped. ‘If you know a guy has a girlfriend—especially if that girlfriend is me—there’s absolutely no reason you should be doing anything with him that could be taken the wrong way. It’s a choice, Annabel. And if you make the wrong one, you have only yourself to blame when there are consequences.’

I sat back in my seat, keeping quiet as she pulled up in front of a small white house. [...] If I’d been bolder…I might have pointed out that it couldn’t just be that all the girls in town had it in for Sophie’s relationship, that Will had to have some culpability in all the rumors.”

Annabel’s complicated relationship with her best friend Sophie and Sophie’s tumultuous romance with Will are highlighted through the tension-filled dialogue. While Annabel’s character is shown as rational and kind, Sophie is bold, unforgiving, vindictive, and protective of those she loves. After Will rapes Annabel, she remembers this night with Sophie and all her cruelty to those who “wronged” her over the years. She realizes Sophie will blame her rather than believe and support her about Will taking advantage of her without her consent.

“Behind the photographer, I could see the other girls watching me—the new models, the seniors, Emily. But while I’d had so much trouble lately with being stared at, in this setting it was familiar, what was supposed to happen. If only for a few minutes, I could stop thinking of everything inside to focus only on the surface: one glimpse, one glance, one look. This one. [...]

I kept my eyes on [the photographer] as he moved around me, the flash popping as he directed me to come out [from the plants], emerge, again and again.”

The modeling shoot with many plants for the local floral store is symbolic of the theme of appearances vs. reality. Annabel takes solace in focusing only on her appearance, not the deeper emotions and trauma she’s kept hidden for months now. The surface level can’t hurt her, but the photographer asking her to emerge from the plants hints at her larger transformation when she decides to release the truth of her trauma to Owen and her family and make a difference by testifying in court against Will.

“‘‘Anger’s not bad,’ he said. ‘It’s human. And anyway, just because someone’s upset doesn’t mean they’ll stay that way.’

I looked down at my steering wheel, picking at the edge. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘In my experience, when people I’m close with have gotten upset with me, that’s it. It is forever. Everything changes.’”

Annabel grows when she faces tension with Owen, and she finds the courage to explain her actions and feelings. Owen’s perspective on anger helps her mature, but Annabel’s past experiences with people like Sophie, Clarke, and her sisters—who still aren’t speaking to each other—defy Owen’s belief in anger passing. Only later does Annabel’s perspective shift as her sisters find closure and she befriends Clarke again.

“‘Seriously, do you ever think to yourself, maybe I shouldn’t say this? Maybe it’s not the right thing to do?’

He considered this for a second. ‘No,’ he said finally. ‘I told you. I don’t like liars.’

‘It’s not lying though. It’s just not telling.’

‘You’re saying there’s a difference?’

‘There is,’ I said. ‘One is actively deceiving. The other is just not saying something out loud.’

‘Yes, but,’ he replied, pulling out another pretzel, ‘you’re still participating in a deception. Except it’s just to yourself. Right?’ [...]

I would never have been able to tell him so, but Owen inspired me. The little white lies I told on a daily basis, the things I kept in, each time I was not totally honest—I was aware of every one now. I was also cognizant of how good it felt to actually be able to say what I thought to someone. Even if it was just about music. Or not.”

Annabel and Owen’s ongoing conversation about the truth and its definition creates layers to the theme of viewpoints on lies and truth. Annabel is surprised and inspired by Owen’s constant honesty, and she is slowly growing into a more outspoken, candid person, starting with her opinions on music because she feels comfortable enough with Owen to share her thoughts and feelings. To Owen, omitting or not sharing something important is still lying at least to yourself.

“As [Whitney] turned on the faucet and began washing her hands, I walked over to the window to look at the flowerpots. The dirt in them was black and fragrant, spotted with fertilizer, and I could see beads of water here and there, glinting in the sunlight. Maybe it was a stupid exercise, and you couldn’t grow things in winter. But there was something I liked about the idea of those seeds, buried so deep, having at least a chance to emerge. Even if you couldn’t see it beneath the surface, molecules were bonding, energy pushing up slowly, as something worked so hard, all alone, to grow.”

The imagery and symbolism of the seeds affect Annabel as well as Whitney. Like Annabel and Whitney, the seeds are on a journey of slow, steady, growth. Further, the seeds are connected to the theme of appearances vs. reality, as you can’t see deeper into the soil to notice the seeds transforming. Annabel believes they shouldn’t be judged based on only the plain soil surface.

“‘The thing about Whitney,’ I said, ‘is that she was always really private. So you never knew if anything was wrong with her. My sister Kirsten, she’s the total opposite, the kind of person who always volunteers too much information. So like, when Kirsten was unhappy, you knew it, even if you didn’t want to. Whereas with Whitney, you had to draw it out of her. Or figure it out some other way.’

Owen looked back at the house, but Whitney had disappeared again. ‘What about you?’ he said. [...] ‘How can they tell when something’s wrong with you.’

They can’t, I thought, but I didn’t say this. Couldn’t say this. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I guess you’d have to ask them.’”

Annabel starts to open up with Owen, including the truth about her older sister Whitney’s eating disorder and her sisters’ personalities. When Owen questions her, Annabel thinks of her inability to speak up and how others can’t tell if she’s upset, as she keeps so much bottled up inside. The themes of silence, speaking up, and appearances vs. reality are present in this scene.

“When I clicked on the button, the screen changed, pulling up a list of songs. The first one was “Jennifer” by a band called Lipo. Which sounded slightly familiar. [...] It took only a moment to recognize it as one of the songs from the first show of Owen’s I’d listened to. Not liked, but listened to. And discussed with him afterward.

They were all there. Every song we’d ever talked or argued about, listed in careful order. [...] I thought of all the times I’d seen Owen with his earphones on and wondered what he might be listening to, much less thinking about. Who would have ever guessed that it might have been me?”

Looking through Owen’s iPod he left behind, Annabel is struck by the power of music, a major motif in the book, and her growing romantic feelings for him. Owen crafting a precise playlist based on Annabel and their daily conversations about music shows that he is interested in her as more than friends too. Appearances vs. reality are an underlying message, as Owen hasn’t hinted that he’s taken a romantic interest in Annabel yet.

“‘And then,’ [Mallory] said, ‘it ends with the first dance, where you get the hot guy, which means the rest of the year will be even better.’ She sighed. ‘It’s like you have this great life, and get to do all this cool stuff. All the stuff high school should be. You’re like—’

I looked at her again. Her face was inches from the pictures, still staring. ‘The girl who has everything,’ I said, remembering the director’s words.

She turned to me, nodding. ‘Exactly,’ she said.

I wanted to tell her, right then, that this wasn’t true. That I was far from the girl who had everything; that I wasn’t even that girl in the pictures, if I ever had been. No one’s life was really like that, one glorious moment after another, especially mine. A real set of snapshots from my back-to-school experiences would be [...] Sophie’s pretty mouth forming an ugly word, Will Cash smiling at me, me alone behind the building retching in the grass.”

Modeling is a job based on appearances, and Annabel’s commercial is the epitome of showing an unreal, surface-level life of a high school girl compared to her realistic, hard life. Though Mallory is too young to understand this concept and idolizes fashion, Annabel wishes she could explain to her that her life isn’t perfect, that she isn’t the popular girl who has everything she could ever want, and that her life is the opposite of her character’s in the commercial. Thus, appearances vs. reality and silence and speaking up are themes represented here.

“‘What do I look like?’

‘Like this,’ [Owen] said, nodding at me. ‘My point is, I don’t know you as someone who gets their picture taken in a cheerleader outfit. Or even as a model, period. That’s not you to me.’

I wanted to ask him to explain further, to say what I was to him, exactly. But then I realized maybe he just had. I already knew he thought of me as honest, direct, even funny—all things I had never thought about myself. Who knew what else I could be, what kind of potential there was in the differences between that girl and the one he saw now.”

Unlike his sister in the previous scene, Owen views Annabel in a realistic, natural light, not as a model portraying a fake life. He subverts the typical idea of judging by appearances and feeling attraction only through physical means; Owen likes Annabel for her personality over her physical looks, and his affectionate, kind view of her helps Annabel gain self-worth and inspires her to change into whoever she may want to be.

“Then he shifted, moving closer to me, and I felt his arm press against mine, his skin warm. And then, finally, Owen kissed me—really kissed me—and I couldn’t hear anything: not the water, the music, or even my own heartbeat, which had to be pounding. Instead, it was just silence, the very best kind, stretching out forever, or only a moment, and then it was over.”

The moment of Annabel and Owen’s first real kiss is full of sensory imagery, including his warm skin, Annabel’s heartbeat, and the sound of silence. Their connection is linked to music and silence, listening to their love louder than anything else. The scene incorporates the book’s major elements of music and silence, as well as tropes from the romance genre. Annabel learning to trust boys and connect with Owen shows personal character growth too.

“I turned back to face forward, and then Emily stepped out from behind the curtain. [...] It was fake on the outside, but so true within. You only had to look, really look, to tell. The weird thing was that all fall, at school, at rehearsals, anytime we passed, Emily wouldn’t meet my eyes. [...] But this time as we approached each other, I could feel her staring at me, willing me to turn my head, pulling my gaze in her direction. I fought it as hard as I could. But just as she passed me, I gave in. She knew. I could tell…[...] It was her eyes. Despite the thick makeup, they were dark-rimmed, haunted, and sad. But most of all though, they were familiar. [...] I’d spent a summer with those same eyes—scared, lost, confused—staring back at me.”

This scene not only connects Annabel and Emily in a shared trauma at Will’s hands, but it speaks to the theme of appearances vs. reality. Looking closer, with one meaningful stare, Annabel sees past the surface level of their made-up appearances (their beautiful model masks) to the deeper, inner beauty and struggles of these seemingly perfect, gorgeous girls. Their shared look also brings back traumatic memories for Annabel and empathy for Emily.

“‘Look,’ [Will] said. ‘I was waiting for you, and then she came up here…’ He trailed off, shaking his head, but kept his eyes on her. ‘I don’t know…’

Sophie turned her attention back to me, and for a moment we just looked at each other. She had to see something was wrong, I thought. I shouldn’t have to tell her. [...] People were coming, I thought. People were hearing this. People would know.

‘You think you can just fuck my boyfriend at a party and I won’t find out?’

I felt my mouth open, but no words came. [...]

‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s not like that.’

‘I know what I saw!’ she screamed.”

Sophie doesn’t believe Annabel when she tries to tell the truth of the rape, and the experience for Annabel was so intense and damaging that she can’t even process it or cry yet, much less explain it. Will’s reaction not taking any accountability and blaming Annabel portrays the perpetrator’s mentality. All their reactions immediately following the rape fit their characters. This scene is a worst-case scenario of the themes of appearances vs. reality, as what Sophie thinks happened is far from the truth.

“The next day, I tried to call Sophie, but she wouldn’t answer. I knew I should go over to her house, explain myself in person, but each time I began to I had a flash of being in that room, that hand over my mouth, the bang of my foot kicking the door, and I just couldn’t do it. In fact, whenever I thought about what happened, my stomach twisted, and I felt bile rising in my throat. Like some part of me was trying to push it up and out, purging it from my body entirely in a way I could not do on my own.”

Annabel’s attempt to mend her relationship with Sophie shows that her sweetness and politeness are deeply ingrained in her character. Even after being raped, Annabel tries to explain the situation to Sophie, who is livid, when Annabel should be upset with her and Will. Annabel’s uncontrollable bodily reactions show a symbolic purging that often occurs after trauma. Though she remains quiet about the crime, Annabel’s body experiences trauma symptoms, and her sudden moments of sickness can’t be suppressed.

“‘I just don’t get it,’ Owen said. ‘There has to be a reason, and you just don’t want to give it. And that’s just…’ He paused, shaking his head. ‘It’s not like you.’

For a moment, everything was very quiet. So silent as I said, ‘It is though.’

Owen looked at me, shifting his bag to the other leg. ‘What?’

‘It is like me,’ I said. My voice was low, even to my ears. ‘This is just like me.’

‘Annabel.’ He still sounded annoyed, like this could never be true. So wrong. ‘Come on.’

I looked down at my hands again. ‘I wanted to be different,’ I said to him. ‘But this is how I really am.’

I’d tried to tell him that first day. I’d said I didn’t always tell the truth, that I didn’t handle conflict well, that anger scared me, that I was used to people just disappearing when they were mad. Our mistake was that we both thought I was capable of changing.”

Characterization and conflict are prominent writing craft techniques used in this scene. Annabel admitting to Owen that she isn’t honest, that her true character runs and avoids sharing hard truths, is a defining shift in their relationship. Though she wants to change, Annabel feels like a failure and admits she isn’t who Owen believes her to be, that she doesn’t have the traits of honesty and boldness that he values. He, in turn, is upset and doesn’t believe her.

“‘It was not the last time I would run away from my sisters. Not the last time I thought being alone was preferable. I am still the center sister. But I see it differently now. There has to be a middle. Without it, nothing can ever truly be whole. Because it is not just the space between but also what holds everything together. [...]

I just sat there, a lump rising in my throat, as applause began all around me [...]. I could only imagine how hard it must have been to read this piece aloud. [...] Sitting there, watching my sister, I wondered which was harder in the end. The act of telling, or who you told it to. Or maybe if, when you finally got it out, the story was really all that mattered.”

Whitney’s reading of her emotional, personal writing shows that she has transformed into a more creative, open person. Whitney inspires Annabel to share her truth later, as she shows a strength that has a profound impact on Annabel and Kirsten. Characterization of Whitney through her internal thoughts and descriptions in her writing occurs here. Annabel also develops in her reflections.

“When I hit the PLAY button, all I could hear was static, and I settled in, closing my eyes, and waited for the first song to begin. It didn’t. Not in the next few minutes, not ever. Then I realized: the CD was blank.

Maybe it was supposed to be a joke. Or something profound. But as I lay there, it only seemed like silence filling my ears. And the thing was, it was so freaking loud. [...]

Shhh, Annabel. It’s just me. [...]

I understood now. This voice, the one that had been trying to get my attention all this time, calling out to me, begging me to hear it—it wasn’t Will’s. It was mine.”

The meaning of the book’s title, Just Listen, is revealed right before the climax, allowing Annabel to finally find the fortitude to speak out about her rape and its effects, then other truths, such as how she wants to quit modeling. The repeated line of “Shhh, Annabel. It’s just me,” flips into her own voice, an epiphany that validates her personal empowerment and coming-of-age growth. Right after listening to herself, Annabel is able to share her past with Owen, then her family, and, ultimately, in court against Will.