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Joey, Emory’s 17-year-old brother who has a heroin addiction, has never felt that he measured up to his parents’ expectations. At a young age, Joey’s parents put him on behavior modification drugs to help with his struggles in school. After an impulsive stunt jumping from a roof, Joey took prescription pain medication and became addicted. For an entire year, with the help of Emory, Joey hides his addiction from his parents. However, after Joey’s involvement in the car accident that kills Candy MontClair, he can no longer hide, and his parents send him to rehab in Colorado hoping it will miraculously cure him and he will return home fixed. Through Joey’s journey, Glasgow highlights the systemic problems that contribute to teenage opioid addiction.

Joey returns home changed, but Emory realizes that much of the change comes from being free from the pressures of home and school. She thinks, “[j]ust like me, Joey was tired of the noise. But for me, Joey was the noise. I never really thought we were noise for him too” (120). This exemplifies the indirect characterization of Joey throughout the novel; Glasgow rarely presents Joey’s character directly, mirroring the experience of endeavoring to understand someone with an addiction.

Joey’s parents make him feel guilty and ashamed of his addiction. Meanwhile, his peers label him a “druggie” and go as far as faulting him for Candy’s death. Emory watches as Joey struggles to find his identity and purpose while also managing his recovery. When it all becomes too much and Joey relapses, Emory and her parents must accept that addiction recovery is a complex process full of uncertainties and heartache, and as Liza states, “[y]ou can’t fix him because he isn’t broken. He’s just Joey. He has a disease” (276). Through Joey’s character, Glasgow explores the challenges that come when supporting a loved one through addiction and recovery and the importance of loving someone for who they are and holding onto hope that they can one day find the freedom of sobriety.

Gage is the stereotypical handsome high school sports star who reaps the benefits of the hetero-patriarchal structures that Glasgow explores. He is Emory’s neighbor; in usual circumstances, she assumes that a boy like that would not notice her. After seeing her through her bedroom window, Gage begins a text relationship with Emory that quickly escalates to meeting secretly in her pool house. Though she is sexually inexperienced, Emory enjoys the physical sensations that she has when Gage touches her, and though he forces her to keep their meetings secret, she interprets his attention in the pool house as an affirmation of her identity. Despite his refusal to be seen with her in public, Emory’s affection for Gage grows, and she begins to describe him as an addiction, claiming, “[h]e’s my own personal recovery from the hell of last year and this past summer” (132). Like Luther, he represents the temptation of addictive behaviors–their short-term gratification despite long-term damage.

Their physical relationship escalates, and Gage takes nude photographs of Emory which he promises to delete. Gage cruelly rejects Emory’s request to dance at the Fall Festival and someone leaks the nude photos to the entire student body which awakens Emory to the truth of their sham relationship. Though Gage’s rejection of Emory is brutal, and the ensuing photo scandal causes her intense suffering at school, ultimately Emory rises from the ashes a stronger and more confident person understanding that she doesn’t need the approval of a boy to be a person of value. Gage’s apology conveys character development, but his character ultimately highlights the character development of Emory.

Abigail is Emory’s mother and is the distillation of the family’s wealth and privilege. More concerned with preserving her family’s good name than the mental health of her children, Abigail prioritizes her career and status, refusing to recognize the signs that her children are suffering. After Joey overdoses and is involved in the car accident, Abigail claims, “[t]his is not something that happens to people like us” (5), exhibiting her refusal to believe that white wealthy people can struggle with opioid addiction. Contrasted with Neil’s passivity, Abigail actively avoids having hard conversations with her children and outsources their care to expensive rehab facilities and physical therapists or buys them a new car so that they can resume their normal lives. Abigail's obsession with her family’s history and legacy makes her ignorant of the needs of the current generation, and her insistence on forcing her children to conform to her standards pushes them to make dangerous decisions. After Emory’s photos go public, Neil awakens to the necessity of being more present in his children’s lives, but it takes Joey disappearing for Abigail to become aware of her misguided view of parenting. Seeing that the Mill, her family’s legacy, has become a shelter for displaced people creates the most change in Abigail as she pledges not only to show more empathy and compassion to her children but also to the citizens of the town that her family helped to build.