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“Maybe that’s what Joey liked about drugs. The way they rearranged things, shifted memories, erased what he didn’t want to deal with. Make uncomfortable things fade away.”

Early in the narrative, Emory attempts to understand Joey’s addiction. Glasgow frequently characterizes Joey indirectly through Emory’s conjectures, emphasized by the uncertain word “[m]aybe,” portraying the experience of attempting to understand someone with an addiction.

“A star is mighty good company.”

Glasgow based the novel loosely on Thorton Wilder’s play Our Town. The line from the play uses figurative language to compare a star to a friend, emphasizing the loneliness that Emory feels since the stars are so distant although she finds solace by staring up at them.

“Lights glow from every window like our house has a thousand eyes.”

Emory lives in a small town where everyone knows her family. Living under the microscope of public scrutiny is made more difficult after the accident and the news of Joey’s overdose comes out. Glasgow personifies the windows of the homes as if they are also watching their every movement.

“Finefinefinefinefine.”

Emory and Joey have learned to bury their feelings and emotions. When their parents ask them how they are, they respond with a pat answer of “fine” or “okay.” The repetition of the words highlight that they are an automatic mantra, and the fact that they are written with no break suggests that they leave Emory no pause for breath, portraying the way she feels suffocated by the expectation to be “fine.”

“Standing so close to him feels electrical, bolts of heat and light that erase the pain in my knee, my thoughts about Joey, everything.”

Emory describes the intensity of her attraction to Gage. It is a deeply physical sensation that is so powerful it makes her forget her pain. However, the magnetism is dangerous as it numbs Emory to reality and lulls her into thinking that what she has with Gage is a real relationship, reflecting the experience of drug addiction.

“Adults never tell you the truth about anything anyway.”

Emory’s assertion speaks of the distrust that the teenagers in the novel have for adults. This highlights the division between teenagers and adults in the novel, laying the foundation for the theme of The Hidden Lives of Teenagers Searching for Identity.

“[G]o to the shoe-in-the-tree house.”

The house on Wolf Creek Road holds much symbolism for Emory as it was their destination the night of the crash. The shoes in the tree are a message to people in the community, signaling that it is a place where drugs are sold. The shoes create an eerie image since they are not filled by people, suggesting the lives lost or ruined by the opioid epidemic.

“We’re not even humans, just a series of ten-second clips and likes/not likes.”

Emory speaks of the impact of social media on teenagers. No one takes the time to foster real relationships and the teenagers base their self-worth on how many likes their posts get, emphasizing the isolation in the community that contributes to the opioid epidemic, as exemplified by Joey.

“Nobody knows what to do at any time. That’s the great lie of high school, that everyone but you knows how to live.”

Daniel speaks a truth to Emory about how to survive the emotional ups and downs in high school. Glasgow uses histrionic language of the “great lie” to portray the emotional intensity of the teenagers.

“But she can’t lock away what’s in the world outside this house. No one can. This is a battle without a plan.”

The more time Emory spends learning about the nuances of recovery, the more she understands that her parents are mishandling Joey’s situation. Using the locked safe as a metaphor to illustrate the precarity of compartmentalization, Glasgow explores how difficult it is to prevent relapse.

“The truth sits inside me, a cold stone, as cold as his eyes looking at me from the hospital bed.”

Once Emory visits Gage in the hospital, she knows that not only is their relationship over, but it was a lie all along. Glasgow uses figurative language to describe the way Emory absorbs the harsh truth. The cold feeling is the opposite of the intense heat that she once felt in his embrace.

“All my secrets are out now.”

After struggling for so long to maintain the façade of the perfect child, Emory feels liberated when her family and peers learn of her double life. This is a significant moment of character development in relation to The Hidden Lives of Teenagers Searching for Identity.

“There’s like, so many girls walking around with giant red, well, I guess I should say, scarlet letters on their shirts.”

Daniel explains to Emory that Liza’s “Slut Club” campaign encourages girls who have been wronged by men in some way to wear a scarlet “A” on their shirts. This is a literary allusion to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter in which Hester Prynne, a shamed and scorned outcast of her Puritan society, is forced to sew a red A on her dress to signify her sin of adultery.

“HAVE YOU SEEN ME?”

The pleading words that Emory types on Joey’s missing person posters have a layered meaning. Much of the reason that Joey struggles with addiction is that he feels unseen and invisible to his family and peers.

“I didn’t know you could feel both sad and hopeful all at once, and how much the mingling of those two things would hurt.”

Emory describes the complex experience of conflicting emotions. Part of her character development in the story is learning how to balance those emotions in productive ways. Her feeling of sadness and hope characterizes the tone of the end of the novel.

“Millions of infinite things add up to the whole.”

Daniel’s encouragement to Emory helps her understand that neither she nor anyone can save Joey with a grand, heroic act. The novel suggests that it’s the small acts of kindness and humanitarianism that work to create change over time.

“Slides wooden matches against the box. Scrape, crunch, crackle, flare.”

Glasgow uses onomatopoeia to describe the sounds made when starting a fire. The sounds are amplified by the crushing silence in the Ward home as they wait for any news or sign of Joey.

“It’s a burning feeling, living with a missing person inside you. A ghost hole, a nefarious, sharp pain.”

Ghosts, disappearance, and being unseen are recurring images and ideas in the novel, symbolizing the loss of hope. The townsfolk refer to individuals struggling with addiction as “ghosties.” Emory feels as if she’s lost Joey forever and he is now a ghost, too.

“The pine trees are dusted with snow, the branches hanging out over the road like white hands.”

Returning to the scene of the accident is traumatic for Emory. As she did in the prologue, Glasgow personifies the trees; however, this time she portrays them as less malevolent, exemplifying Emory’s progress towards healing.

“How glorious it is to drown.”

Glasgow returns to the symbol of water when Emory describes the feeling of bliss after she takes the Vicodin. Unlike floating in the pool, a therapeutic sensory deprivation during which she was only partially submerged, the prescription medication completely swallows her.

“Her voice is like knives in my ears.”

Glasgow uses a simile to describe Emory’s sensitivity to sound when she is coming down off the high of the pain medication. Her mother’s voice is torturous to her in her depressive state.

“Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?”

This line is a refrain used throughout the Broadway production Hamilton, relating it to the motif of the Drama Club which symbolizes self-expression. It is Candy’s epitaph, but Mr. Stanley shows it to Emory to inspire her to take back control of the narrative of her life.

“Joey is me, and I’m Joey. I have to fit us back together somehow.”

Emory and Joey share a special bond and she realizes the depth of their connection once he is gone. Emory recognizes the inextricable ways they are tied together after what they have endured which emphasizes The Ripple Effects of Addiction in Families and Communities, since Emory and Joey’s experiences are related and reflective.