The Way I Used to Be

The novel opens on a cold December morning. It is the morning after Edy is raped by Kevin, the best friend of Edy’s older brother, Caelin. Kevin is 17 years old, while Edy is only 14 and just beginning her freshman year of high school. Edy is a self-described “dorky little sister” who wears glasses and a “freshman band-geek nobody” (7) who plays the clarinet. As a close friend of Caelin, Kevin had slept overnight at Edy’s family home.

Told from her first-person perspective, Edy lies in her bed, grappling in a state of confusion the morning after the rape: “I don’t know a lot of things. I don’t know why I didn’t hear the door click shut. […] Why I didn’t scream when I opened my eyes and saw him crawling between my sheets. Or why I didn’t try to fight him when I had the chance” (1). Edy tries to convince herself that it is not real, that the rape did not occur, but there is physical evidence—bruises on her arms, soiled sheets—that the sexual assault happened.

It is a Sunday morning, and downstairs Edy hears her parents, Vanessa and Conner, going about their usual weekend activities.