LitCharts (2024)

Ari hates living at home. He hates Mom, Dad, and Dante, and hates himself for feeling this way. Life improves with Ari’s new casts, and after a week, his arm cast comes off and he graduates to crutches. Ari can bathe himself and he marks the occasion in his journal. Dante comments later that Ari is smiling again. One morning, Ari wakes up and catches his reflection in a mirror. He wonders who he is and then joins Mom in the kitchen. They discuss Ari’s time as a Boy Scout and how he’s going to keep his hair long. Ari thinks that Mom looks beautiful and like she knows who she is. He wants to ask when he’ll know who he is, but he doesn’t.

Ari goes back to his room and pulls out his journal. He writes about his fear of going to school on crutches, the happy experiences he hopes he’ll have in his pickup truck, and physical therapy. He writes that he’s going to start lifting weights and that he’s afraid that he and Dante won’t be friends again. He wants a dog and doesn’t know who he is, and what he wants most for his birthday is for someone to talk about Bernardo. He writes that he thought this summer would be the one in which he figured out that he was alive, and that the world is waiting for him.

Dante visits that evening. They compare the arms they broke in the accident, and Dante says he went swimming. He quietly says that he loves swimming and he loves Ari. Ari says that Dante shouldn’t say that. He understands what Dante is saying and wishes that Dante didn’t have to say things out loud. Dante asks if Ari hates him. Suddenly, Ari realizes that he doesn’t hate anyone; he just doesn’t know how to be Dante’s friend. Ari assures Dante that they’ll still be friends when Dante returns from Chicago.