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Faithful: A Novel
Faithful: A Novel
Faithful: A Novel
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Faithful: A Novel

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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About this ebook

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Marriage of Opposites and The Dovekeepers comes a soul-searching story about a young woman struggling to redefine herself and the power of love, family, and fate.

Growing up on Long Island, Shelby Richmond is an ordinary girl until one night an extraordinary tragedy changes her fate. Her best friend’s future is destroyed in an accident, while Shelby walks away with the burden of guilt.

What happens when a life is turned inside out? When love is something so distant it may as well be a star in the sky? Faithful is the story of a survivor, filled with emotion—from dark suffering to true happiness—a moving portrait of a young woman finding her way in the modern world. A fan of Chinese food, dogs, bookstores, and men she should stay away from, Shelby has to fight her way back to her own future. In New York City she finds a circle of lost and found souls—including an angel who’s been watching over her ever since that fateful icy night.

Here is a character you will fall in love with, so believable and real and endearing, that she captures both the ache of loneliness and the joy of finding yourself at last. For anyone who’s ever been a hurt teenager, for every mother of a daughter who has lost her way, Faithful is a roadmap.

Alice Hoffman’s “trademark alchemy” (USA TODAY) and her ability to write about the “delicate balance between the everyday world and the extraordinary” (WBUR) make this an unforgettable story. With beautifully crafted prose, Alice Hoffman spins hope from heartbreak in this profoundly moving novel.
LanguageEnglish
PublisherAtria Books
Release dateNov 1, 2016
ISBN9781476799261
Author

Alice Hoffman

Alice Hoffman is the author of many books for children including Aquamarine, Green Angel, and Nightbird. Her books for adults include Practical Magic, The Museum of Extraordinary Things,The Dovekeepers and The Marriage of Opposites. Half Magic is her favorite book for children and Edward Eager is her favorite children’s book author.

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Reviews for Faithful

Rating: 4.14322921875 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Ms. Hoffman paints a true picture of adolescence and growing up. This is a wonderful story abot life, tragedy and love.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A beautifully written novel that deals with major emotions such as grief, love, loss and dealing with life. I really connected with Shelby the main character and was seriously pulling for her through the whole book. She pulled at my heartstrings and made me furious the next chapter. Not many good novels connect with so many novels. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this lovely novel.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This was a quick read, I opened the book and other than a couple coffee refills didn't put the book back down until the last page was turned. - So saying that --- It was a good interesting guick read but something was missing for me. Therefore I gave it only 3 stars-- This was a definite hard topic to conquer - teenage tragedy, depression, drugs, guilt, even adultery and spirituality. A whole lot happens in this book! The reader is plunged into the aftermath of a teenage car accident with (Shelby a senior in high school and the driver) facing survivor guilt, attempted suicide even hospitalization, struggling to return to life - Hoffman gives you bits and pieces to chew on and reconstruct the lives of the main characters through out so you get a feeling that you really know these characters. Heartbreak in some many different levels for all of the characters and how each responds and recovers. I especially "love" the angels in this book - Angels (where you least expect to find them) who help you survive the deepest of sorrow, the everyday struggles and guide you back into the world of living.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The pathos was palpable. The crushing despair was evident on every page. It almost became too hard to turn the page and be battered again. But Alice Hoffman is such an exquisite and skilled writer that I did turn the page and finished "Faithful" in one evening.

    The subject matter is troubling but the progression of the book is brutally logical. Who is the victim of the accident? Suffice it to say that each character in the book is injured. Ms. Hoffman's ability to move the story along injecting trace amounts of humor and hope worked for me. Even though I rounded up to 4 stars, the denouement was disappointing.

    Thank you NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for a ARC of this book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I adore Hoffman's writing, and generally find such a magic in her plots and characters that I can't stand to put them down. This one had moments like that, where I was intoxicated with every moment.... but it also didn't quite stand up to what I've come to expect from her books, and left me wanting a bit more.Part of the problem here is that the book constantly seems to promise the presence of a bit of magic, and readers of Hoffman's work will recognize that a bit of magic--her brand of magical realism, if you will--often slips into her works. Here, the book seemed to promise that, as did the book's blurb... and yet, while the book offered a lovely story with interesting characters, that promised magic was always out of reach, and never materialized. There were moments where the story almost made up for it, too, but some of the depth of her other works was just absent here--maybe because it moved too quickly, I'm not sure.All told, I'm just left wanting more, and a little bit disappointed. I'd still recommend Hoffman's work in a moment--and I think readers who are new to Hoffman will adore this book--I'm just not sure that long-time readers of her work will be quite so satisfied with this one and they'd expect.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I felt like I knew Shelby Richmond while I was reading it. When I was going to high school, I knew two girls that remind me of Shelby Richmond, the brainy one and Helene Boyd the beautiful one. They stuck together like they were one entity. Their names even rhymed. So that past experience made it so easy to dive into the story. Shelby is the follower and Helene is the follower. Alice Hoffman's Faithful delves deeply many emotionally charged feelings all at once. One day, something made Helene upset and she demanded that Shelby drive Shelby did not want to go out but Helene insisted on that snowy night. When she woke up she was alive and Helene was deep in a coma.Why did she survive and not Helene? Shelby goes into emotional darkness, into a pysch ward where bad things happened to her. Shelby feels so very alone. She withdraws and hides from herself, her family and her friends. She pulls us into her depression and fears. As a reader, you want to help her but you cannot. She suffers so much, she cuts her hair, eats very little, she does penance. But slowly her life goes from a frozen state to finding things that she loves like Chinese food, bookstores, and a man who sells pot her. Then she finds dogs and wonders why she cares. But she is undergoing enormous changes that seem like little rays of light in a very dark cave. I loved this character and gulped down the chapters too fast because I loved Shelby so much. I read this book very quickly and am tempted to read it all over again. I haven't felt so much emotion since my brother died. It is not just survivor guilt, depression, and PTSD in this book but also a story of growth, struggle and love.I highly recommend Faithful for people who like to read about people who have to fight for their sanity to not let depression completely engulf them. I received an advanced copy of this book from the Publisher as a win from FirstReads but that in no way made a difference in my thoughts or feelings in this review.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Alice Hoffman, another favorite author of mine! I own and have read every single book she has written! This book is no exception, it's incredible, amazing and just plain old wonderful. Shelby is in a tragic car accident that leaves her best friend in a permanent coma. She cannot get past this. The story shows how she tries to function after this unbelievable event. Every word is perfect, I just absolutely loved this book!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Grief and loss....like falling helplessly, hopelessly into a black hole. All the "what ifs..." and the "I should haves..." that run through one's mind, examining all ways that this mindnumbing loss could have been prevented. Having been through this type of loss four years ago when my mother passed, I easily recognized the desolation Shelby feels when her best friend is left comatose, after a black ice incident when Shelby had been driving. Reliving the incident in every moment endlessly on some type of hideous loop of self destruction and self recrimination.And yet, this story is not the sad descent into hopelessness that one may expect. It's the powerful story of the support of family and friends, and even strangers. Working one's way through grief and again finding worth in your own being. Being faithful to the person you've lost and to yourself. Dealing with Grief can take years, and it never really goes away. One just gets better at dealing with it in microsteps. And one can find truths in one's own hidden depths. This is a touching story, full of hidden hope. Don't miss it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Alice Hoffman's "Faithful" is an engrossing and captivating novel dealing with a devastating situation, loneliness, self- deprecating behavior.redemption,survival,trust, love and believing. The characters are flawed, not perfect living in an imperfect world. Family and love are important elements of the novel. The heroine shows tremendous growth in her character and has more self respect and a sense of purpose. I enjoyed the location of the story, especially since it is the town I live in. Friendship and relationships are evident as well. I enjoyed Alice Hoffman's use of words, and how she "magically" tells a story. I would recommend this book as an engrossing read. Many thanks to Netgalley and Simon and Schuster for the opportunity to read this book. (less)
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    3.5 StarsI'm not sure how to go about reviewing Faithful. Is it coming of age? Is it a redemption story? I mean, I guess in the end it is both. Shelby, who was driving the night she and her friend, Helene, are in a horrible accident, both comes of age and slowly redeems herself over the years following.The story feels very real, and yet farfetched at times. Shelby's actions, fueled both by guilt and depression, range from self-destructive to selfless. Mostly I couldn't help thinking that Shelby needed help. Yes she spent time in a psychiatric hospital, but obviously she still needed yet. I'm sure the idea of the story is that she helped herself by helping others, or some such, but she really and truly needed help.Alice Hoffman does have a way with emotions, sucking you into the character's world. This was my first Alice Hoffman novel, though I'd heard a great deal about some of her past books. I am tempted to pick up another to give it a try. *A free copy was provided by the publisher/netgalley in exchange for my honest review.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Shelby Richmond and her best friend Helene Boyd were in a car accident when they were teenagers. Shelby blames herself for what happened and always carried around the guilt of being the driver and the survivor. Shelby suffered through some dark years, but she's slowly crawling out of the depths of despair to discover what makes her happy - Chinese food, dogs and the people who cared about her when she didn't even care about herself. Not only has she found true friends but she finally found the angel that has been watching over her since that icy night long ago.

    At first I wasn't sure about this book. But I grew to love Shelby so much. Her feelings, her actions, just everything about her felt real. All of the characters felt real. The story was well-written, flowed smoothly and made me feel so many different emotions. It's one of those books that truly makes you feel as though you're part of the character's life in some way. I really enjoyed it!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Shelby Richmond's life is irrevocably altered in the instant her car spins out of control and leaves her passenger and best friend, Helene, in a vegetative state. Shelby spends time in a psychiatric ward where she is repeatedly raped by a caregiver, and then returns to her parents' basement where her transformation from a confident, popular teenager into a drug-addicted loner is completed. Her new best friend and former classmate is a drug dealer, Ben Wick. Shelby and Ben eventually move together to New York, where Ben begins to turn his life around. Shelby's survivor guilt leads to crippling self loathing, and she is incapable of returning Ben's devotion. She begins a relationship with a married man who practices serial infidelity. Having pushed Ben out of her life for her affair, she is totally alone except for a strong friendship with a woman who works at a pet store with her. Throughout the years since the accident, Shelby shows unfailing kindness and compassion for the lost and lonely. As with all the Hoffman novels I have read there is a mystical quality that requires a suspension of disbelief for many of the coincidences and situations. It is impossible not to care about Shelby as she emerges slowly from her self-imposed exile and begins to value herself.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A novel about grief, guilt, and recovery, Faithful tells the story of Shelby, whose life does an about-face the night her friend is killed in a car accident while Shelby is driving. Her survivor guilt and sense of loss of her best friend overwhelm her for years, in spite of the best efforts of her friends and family, particularly her mother and a mysterious sender of cryptic yet sensitive postcards. When she moves from the suburbs to Manhattan, she begins to recover, thanks to her friend/boyfriend and her affection for dogs she rescues. As her relationships to family and friends become more complex we care more and more about Shelby, leading up to a satisfying resolution. I particularly appreciated reading about "normal" people in New York instead of the wealthy and rarified few Manhattanites who people many recent novels.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This was a wonderful but sad coming of age story. I had a difficult time getting into this story but in the end it was well worth my initial struggle. Shelby is involved in a terrible car accident where her best friend ends up in a coma. How will she ever be able to forgive herself? The story unfolds as Shelby spirals into a deep depression and self destructive behavior. She pushes everyone who loves her away as she feels she doesn't deserve their love.As I kept reading I rooted for Shelby to find herself. The story was enjoyable and taught many lessons about redemption. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Shelby Richmond was driving the car the night of the accident that left her friend, Helene in a coma from which Helene is unlikely to ever recover. Shelby feels survivor's guilt and takes it out on herself, including a suicide attmept, shaving her head, and holing up in her parents' basement for years. She puts her life on hold, including not going to college in the fall as she had planned.Eventually, Shelby moves to New York City with her drug-dealer, Ben Mink. As Ben begins to pull his life together, Shelby pulls away, both from her romantic involvement with Ben and her life in general. She eventually takes a job at a pet store and makes friends with one of her co-workers, Maravelle. Against her wishes, Shelby is pulled into Maravelle's life and that of Maravelle's kids. Along the way, Shelby begins to rescue dogs and even a cat from terrible living circumstances. She is haunted by periodic postcards she receives in the mail carrying simple but profound messages that have great meaning in her life every time she receives a new one.Will Shelby ever begin to live up to her true potential and forgive herself for an accident on an icy road long ago?This is a great read, one of the best books I read in 2016, carrying profound lessons and beautiful imagery.I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Alice Hoffman's writing works for me sometimes, and sometimes it does not, so I never know whether I will love her books, one to the next. This one I loved. Shelby is a hard-shelled young woman who, despite some poor decisions, tries to be kind to everyone but herself. She is a tender, damaged soul who can accept other people's shortcomings, but not her own. She doesn't deserve to be happy.I liked her quirks, her personality, her tenderness towards dogs which she carried to the point of criminal acts. Well, good for her! And I wished her well in her messed-up relationships. The characters in this book are lovely, and drew me in. Yes, fiction, I know, but really good fiction can make you forget that. This is a tender, uplifting novel that I thoroughly enjoyed.I was given an advance e-book copy for review.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Faithful by Alice Hoffman is a polished work of fiction. She is a skillful writer and this is a skillful novel.I question whether the skeleton on which the novel is built justifies a novel. That is when Shelby, the protagonist, has an automobile accident as a teenager when she is driving and wearing her seatbelt and her friend and passenger Helene is not wearing hers and ends up terribly injured so that she is in a coma for the rest of her life. Meanwhile Shelby recovers physically after several months but suffers terrible psychological consequences as she feels strong guilt about Helene's injuries as a result of the accident. She lives with this terrible guilt which in turn defines her life and subsequent events in the novel. While I liked the novel i question whether the frame is insufficient.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Faithful by Alice Hoffman; (5*)Alice Hoffman has long been my favorite contemporary author. She has a way with her prose which simply immerses me into the world of her novels and I neither hear nor see anything around me while reading her. Hoffman's newest, Faithful, is no different. I was mesmerized from beginning to end.Faithful is a story of self hate and loathing near to the point of death. Our protagonist, Shelby, sees herself as a nothing, as nonexistent after an auto accident, in which she is driving, leaves her dearest & best friend in a vegetative state. Shelby lives in an emotional deep, dark hole for two years, barely eating and speaking with no one. She smokes weed, watches mind numbing television in the basement of her parent's house and goes out only to meet with her pot source, Ben. He is the only one she speaks to during that entire time. When Ben decides to leave Long Island for New York he manages to convince Shelby to go with him and in a long, agonizingly slow process she begins to heal just a bit when she comes across people and animals who are in need of aid and she cannot help herself but to do something for them. I found this to be a beautifully drawn story with well fleshed out characters and I was saddened when the reading of it came to an end.My thanks to netgalley for providing me with the opportunity to read this very special little book, a book with a big heart.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Just great! Yes, a tough story but I loved the character development and you really get close to them through their thoughts and words and actions, especially Shelby's, of course, the main character. The CD was read by Amber Tamblyn----thoroughly enjoyable.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    3.5 There are two different Shelbys. The before Shelby, seventeen, fun loving, popular in school, a good student and there is the after Shelby. After the accident where Shelby was the driver and made it but her best friend would live paralyzed and in a comma. How does one forgive herself after something like this? Go on and live a life knowing the other person can't? Survivor guilt. This is her story and parts of it are not pretty.A different read from the Hoffman of the last few years but her understanding of people and their imperfections, traumas shine through. I cheered with this character, sympathized with her and at one point was heartbroken when she made a decision I didn't agree with. I applauded her watching as she, almost against her will, tried to move forward and forgive herself. A very poignant story and one that touched me, that I found credible and with characters I loved. ARC from Netgalley.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is one of my favorite books of the year. It is an amazing and moving story of guilt, forgiveness, self-discovery, and the power of love. Ms. Hoffman once again touches my heart with her lovely prose. She tells a beautiful story that made the rest of my world disappear while I was reading.I thank the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this title.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Alice Hoffman never disappoints, and this book is yet another top notch read on the ladder of 30 successful books.When teen aged Shelby listens to her best friend and drives through snow, hitting an icy patch that spins the car out of control, renedering her friend forever on life support, Shelby becomes locked in grief. Shaving her hair to become bald, living hermit-like in her parents basement, venturing out only to meet a local near do well who provides pot to her, in her guilt, Shelby remains severely depressed and responsible for an event out of her controlEventually, it is the love and accumulation of animals that saves Shelby when she moves to New York with her pot providing friend who now is working his way through college.Shelby uses him, but he loves her and will keep her at any cost. Eventually, Shelby moves on to find a life worth living.Filled with heart felt emotion, Hoffman once again provides a wonderful story of guilt, gief and redemption. Unlike other authors who write many books while using their same story line over and over to the point of boredom, Hoffman always recreates magic!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Hoffman is a great storyteller; Shelby had us cheering for her the whole time, proving that tragedy does not have to rewrite a person's story.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Absorbing. Goodness is in each one of us. Great read
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a beautifully written story about a young woman trying to pull herself out of a deep depression following an event that turns her life upside down. Two high school girls make one bad decision that irrevocably changes the course of both their lives, leaving one in an irreversible coma, and the other with a severe case of survivor’s guilt. How does a girl who’d lived a heretofore semi-charmed life recover and rebuild and reinvent a new life for herself? One day at a time, through a series of decisions, some good and some ill-advised, some with unexpected consequences and some that are serendipitous. And through a series of mysterious postcards that encourage her to keep going. Even though through much of the book the main character is in a dark and depressing place, Alice Hoffman’s writing is lovely and somehow hopeful. All in all, this is a book I highly recommend.

    Copy provided by Netgalley and Simon & Schuster in exchange for an unbiased review.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Shelby is such a beautiful, deep character whose journey was so moving to read about. Hoffman’s style of narration is just what I like: a perfect balance of drama, action, and narration. I enjoyed this book so much!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Just loved it, and since it is a prequel, I want to reread the next book again
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Shelby is a popular girl who doesn't have a care in the world. That changes because of an accident. Shelby survives, but her best friend isn't so lucky. She doesn't die, but she also doesn't wake up and remains in a coma. Shelby was behind the wheel and she feels terribly guilty. When a new trauma occurs shortly after the first one Shelby loses herself completely. Will she ever be able to lead a fulfilling life again or will Shelby be broken forever?

    Faithful is a beautiful story. Shelby is an extraordinary girl. She's been through a lot and it defines her. She can't be anything but herself and she has an interesting personality. The beginning of her story is incredibly intense and that sometimes literally took my breath away. After that some lightness creeps in and it's starting to spread in a wonderful meaningful way. I loved Shelby from the start, she's intelligent, she has a great sense of humor and she loves Chinese food. She's fabulous and her character is far from standard. That makes the story fascinating and I was hooked from the moment her transformation begins.

    Alice Hoffman knows how to tell a good story. Her main characters are always special and they surprise me every time I read one of her books. I never know what's going to happen and I love this unexpectedness. Not everything should be taken literally, there are clues and symbols that bring something extra. Even a little detail can have a significant meaning. Alice Hoffman's writing flows easily and her stories are spellbinding, within minutes I stop noticing what happens around me and I'm completely engrossed in the story. Because of this it isn't difficult to fully pay attention to what I'm reading.

    Shelby is still a young girl when the accident happens. Reading about a teenager whose life is completely ruined is tough and my heart ached for her. I felt so many different emotions while reading Faithful. It's a story with plenty of layers and they're all worthwhile. Shelby is unconventional and that is what I liked about her. I loved that she doesn't pretend. Alice Hoffman's story has an amazing message, she shows her readers how important it is to be loved for who you are and to be noticed instead of being taken for granted. Faithful is another brilliant book by one of my favorite authors, I highly recommend it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Such a treasure each one of these books is :) I've heard a few of them and can't wait to read most of these :) If you have some great stories like this one, you can publish it on Novel Star, just submit your story to hardy@novelstar.top or joye@novelstar.top
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Great story!
    It can help you to believe in yourself.

Book preview

Faithful - Alice Hoffman

CHAPTER

1

In February, when the snow comes down hard, little globes of light are left along Route 110, on the side of the road that slopes off when a driver least expects it. The lights are candles set inside paper bags, surrounded by sand, and they burn past midnight. They shouldn’t last for that amount of time, but that’s part of the miracle. On the second anniversary of the accident, a gang of boys creep out their windows and gather at two in the morning to see if Helene’s mother, Diana Boyd, drives along the road replacing each melting pool of wax with a fresh candle. They’re hoping to reveal a con in process and dispel the myth of a miracle, but after keeping watch for a while the boys all flee. In the early morning hours, safe in their beds, they wonder how much of the world can never be understood or explained.

The light globes are made at the high school where Helene was a senior before the accident. People who never even knew her spend all afternoon in the cafeteria filling up paper bags. The first year, the art teacher ordered special sand from Arizona and the candles glowed with red light, but now the sand is trucked in from Heyward’s Gravel Pit, and it’s pure white. It looks like diamonds when you run it through your fingers.

There are dozens of high school girls who lock themselves in their bedrooms on the anniversary night, their hands dusted with luminous sand, prayers on their lips, their hearts heavy with sorrow. Each one thanks her lucky stars she is not Helene, even though Helene was the beautiful girl who could do as she pleased, the one every boy wanted to date and every girl wanted to be like. But that was then. Now even the outcasts—the fat, the unattractive, the lonely, the sorrowful, the lost—are grateful to be who they are, at least for a single evening. Even the most selfish girls—the ones who think nothing of snubbing their less attractive and popular classmates—offer to collect the spent paper bags on their way to school on the morning after the anniversary. The wax will still be hot; the wicks give off smoke. Occasionally a candle will still be burning, so fresh it’s as though it had just been lit. Then the girls gather round in awe and solidarity, even the ones who hate each other. They close their eyes and make a wish, the same one every time: Let it never be me.


The one person who has never been included in the anniversary events, not the safe driving assembly at the school, or the candlelighting ceremony on the corner of Main Street and Route 110, or the prayer vigil at the Boyds’ house, is Shelby Richmond. Not that she’s a high school girl anymore; she graduated when Helene would have, or more correctly, the administration took pity on her and granted her a diploma after she was released from the hospital. Shelby’s mother gave her a thin gold watch that she has never worn. Shelby doesn’t want a gift and she doesn’t want anything beautiful and she certainly doesn’t want to know what time it is. She didn’t go off to college the way she and Helene had planned. She was Helene’s confidante, pretty enough, but not the beautiful one. She was the smart one, the one who often did homework for them both. For her, time has stopped. The girls had applied to NYU and were accepted, but it was too late for Helene, and as it turned out, too late for Shelby as well. Shelby’s parents paid the first semester’s tuition, but she didn’t leave on the appointed day, or the day after, or the one after that. Her suitcases sat in the front hall until her parents lost hope, until the leaves started changing. They waited so long to withdraw her they lost all that tuition money for nothing.

Shelby has not done anything with her life since the night when it happened. Two years have passed, but it might as well be a moment since Helene was injured. Everything that has happened since doesn’t matter. Hours and days are mere flashes: the ER room, the instant she slit her wrists after they stitched her up and declared her recovered from the crash and sent her home, the gray, hazy moment when she was locked into a psych ward, the sound of the door opening when her mother brought her back home. Shelby blinks her eyes and she’s right back in the car. They’d had a disagreement that night because Shelby didn’t want to go out and Helene did. Of course Helene got her way. Shelby always gave in. If she refused, Helene would find someone new to follow her around. Shelby hasn’t told anyone the truth about that night because it sounds as if she were making excuses. But truly, Helene wouldn’t take no for an answer. She was so annoyed when Shelby hesitated that she took off the matching bracelet to Shelby’s that she always wore. Helene’s bracelet had a white enameled butterfly charm; Shelby’s butterfly was black. Helene was the leader. She had a charming, forceful personality, and unlike Shelby, Helene always knew what she wanted. As it turned out, she forgot the bracelet when they went out and Shelby lost hers in the accident. The chain must have snapped when Shelby was lying on the ice, gasping for breath, bleeding through her clothes until her sweater and jeans were soaked through. She’s gone back to search for the charm, but there’s nothing in the tall weeds along the road, only some broken glass that glints blue in the sunlight.

Sometimes when Shelby turns her head too quickly she can swear Helene is there. She doesn’t trust her eyesight even though on her last eye exam her vision was twenty-twenty. Still she is convinced that something is wrong with her vision. It’s been so ever since that night. When she looked up, she saw an angel. It’s a moment that still burns inside her. He leaned over and covered her with his black coat and said she couldn’t give up. She was shivering and her soul was in her mouth, ready to escape as a puff of air, but the angel kept her on earth. She knows it’s insanity to think so. She doesn’t need a psychiatrist to tell her that. She told no one in the psychiatric hospital, not even when they asked her directly: Do you believe in demons and angels? Do you see things that aren’t there?

Why would an angel rescue her when she’s worthless and Helene, who was so much better than she could ever be, was right there, in desperate need of help? All the same, every time she sees a man in a black coat she wonders if it’s her angel, and every time she’s mistaken. She stares at these men a little too long and they get the wrong idea. Hey, wait up, these men say to her when she walks on, along the highway or Main Street. She must look desperate, like someone who would be easy to command. Come on sister, darling, babygirl. She walks faster when this happens. She knows the difference between a demon and an angel, even in the dark. She learned that in the hospital, and she’s not going back there again. On some nights she hears her mother calling her as she wanders through town. Shelby’s mom drives through the streets, searching for Shelby at two or three in the morning. Her mom pulls over and gets out of her car and shouts for her, but Shelby ducks behind the shrubbery. She never answers. She’s simply not worthy of her mother’s love.

Nowadays Shelby sleeps most of the time, dreaming of the way it used to be, back when she didn’t think about anything, when the whole world was blue and shining, a globe no more complicated than a Christmas ball. Her diagnosis is major depression. She also has anxiety, survivor’s guilt, and post-traumatic stress. She was in the ER for only one night after the accident, but she had a three-month stay in the psych hospital soon afterward. She had stopped talking. She refused to eat. Then came the moment when she sat in the shower with a razor in her hands. She was so cold but that didn’t stop her. She cut across her wrist, where the vein was blue. Her blood was so bright. She heard the door open and her mother cry out, and she felt how cold it was when the water was turned off. Her mother was screaming for her father to call an ambulance, but she didn’t leave Shelby. She crouched beside Shelby on the shower floor and tied a towel around her wrist to stanch the flow of blood. It’s okay, baby, Shelby’s mom said. Someone was sobbing. Shelby’s mother wrapped herself around Shelby’s shivering, naked body.

At the hospital nobody visited except her mother. Nobody phoned. Nobody missed her. Rumors had begun in town. She was crazy. It was all her fault. She was bad luck and should be avoided at all costs. Girls who had been friends with Helene and Shelby decided they had lost both friends. It was easier that way. What was gone was gone.

A week passed, and then two, and soon Shelby stopped counting. She was disappearing inch by inch, vanishing into thin air, and then one day a postcard arrived. The nurse at the desk called Shelby’s name during mail call.

Wake up, kiddo, the nurse shouted when Shelby didn’t respond. Shelby was in the TV lounge dozing from the meds they gave her and listening to a talk show her mother liked featuring a group of women who argued about politics and gossiped about famous people.

Shelby Richmond. The nurse sounded more annoyed than usual. Get your ass over here.

Shelby went over to the desk, convinced it was a mistake.

Take it, the nurse said, so Shelby did. Thank you, the nurse said sarcastically, since Shelby still wasn’t talking. She hadn’t said a word since she woke up in the hospital the morning after the accident.

On the front of the postcard there was a delicate ink sketch of a family: a mother, a father, and a daughter. But the daughter had tape over her mouth, heavy packing tape. Shelby recognized herself as the girl who couldn’t speak. Her wrists and heart were painted red. Shelby hadn’t expected anyone else to know how she felt, but clearly someone did. There was no return address, no signature, only a scrawled message: Say something.

Shelby wondered if it was a message from a higher power, even though she didn’t believe in such things. She kept the postcard under her pillow. It felt precious to her. She kept it there until the linens were changed while she was in group therapy saying nothing, and while she was out of her room an aide threw it away. Shelby searched through the garbage cans in a panic until she found it. It was perfect, not folded or torn, and she accepted that as a sign as well. Now that she’s back home she’s wised up. She’s started speaking again, a few mouthfuls of words at a time, but mostly she retreats to the basement, which has become her lair, a wolf’s den, the only place she wants to be. She cuts herself in places no one can see. The soles of her feet. Her inner thigh.

Her single bed is beside boxes of books from her childhood: Andrew Lang’s fairy tales and the Misty of Chincoteague series, which turned her into a horse fanatic. She pleaded with her mom to take her to Virginia to see the wild horses in the book until Sue Richmond finally gave in and they spent the weekend scouring the dunes for the ponies that lived on the beach. Shelby can remember how happy she was, though the weather was gloomy and the horses ran from them. She thinks it may have been the happiest time of her life.

The doctors and her parents can call her condition whatever they wish; Shelby knows what’s wrong with her. She is paying her penance. She is stopping her life, matching her breathing so that it has become a counterpart of the slow intake of air of a girl in a coma. She looks at her postcard every night to remind herself of what they’ll do to her if she allows people to know how damaged she is and takes to silence again. They’ll lock her up and then she’ll disappear for good.

She hasn’t seen Helene since the night of the accident. Once, Helene’s dad, Mr. Boyd, who had always liked Shelby, sent a box of candy on her birthday, but she felt too guilty to open it and tossed it in the trash, uneaten. She’s never wanted to see the hospital bed that has been set up in Helene’s bedroom. In some sense she and Helene are still living identical lives, just as they did in high school. Shelby hasn’t even bought new clothes since it happened; she still wears the same boots she was wearing that night, a wad of newspaper stuck inside the right one because the heel is tearing away.

Of course there are differences. Helene’s hair has not been cut since the accident, while Shelby shaved her head the day she came home from the psych ward. She’s kept it that way so that when she does venture as far as the 7-Eleven for magazines and snacks, people treat her gently, as though she were a cancer patient. Whenever someone whispers, That’s the girl who was driving when Helene had the accident, it’s even worse than if she’d had cancer. The way they look at her. They all have big eyes like in those velvet paintings. They both pity her and blame her. She and Helene were always together. Two peas in a pod. Pretty girls who glided through without a care. How can she go on living after she’s ruined her best friend’s life? They cluck at the skinny, bald girl in big boots. They think she wants compassion, but all she wants is to be left alone. Shelby only goes out after dark, her hat pulled down low. She wears gloves, scarves, and a fat down jacket that makes her shapeless and anonymous. And still, everybody knows.

Shelby and Helene are no longer alike. Shelby’s eyes register images; she eats, poorly, all junk food, but it’s not the feeding tube Helene survives on. Shelby walks, she talks, she goes down to Main Street once or twice a month—on the bus—no more driving for her, that’s for damn sure—to buy weed from a guy they barely knew in high school, Ben Mink. Ben is lanky and tall, with long hair he ties back, sometimes with a shoelace when he can’t find a rubber band. He’s geeky and smart. In high school, Shelby and Helene didn’t know he was alive. They were in the popular crowd of achievers, planning their college visits, going to parties on Friday nights. He hadn’t run with the same crowd—Ben didn’t have a crowd. He used to amble around with a book under his arm, usually something by Philip K. Dick or Kurt Vonnegut. He went on a Shirley Jackson kick, reading all of her books in a twenty-four-hour period, which landed him with a prescription for Prozac. Life was beautiful, everyone knew that, but it was also bitter and bleak and unfair as hell and where did that leave a person? On the outs with the rest of the world. Someone who sat alone in the cafeteria, reading, escaping from his hometown simply by turning the page. Helene joked he was related to werewolves, because he had a scruffy beard even then. Shelby and Helene both had a fear of wolves, for one was said to have escaped from a cage in someone’s basement and it had never been caught. Run, Helene would say when they walked through the woods, vowing that she heard howling.

For years Ben kept his sunglasses on even at night so he didn’t have to look anyone in the eye. Because he believed in aliens and literature he was a target. People called him Ben Stink, if they bothered to call him anything at all. Shelby barely remembers him, but that was then. Now they’re comfortable with each other, if being comfortable is possible for either of them. When they meet they sit in a nearby park, mostly in silence, two loners who can barely make it through their own lives. As dusk falls they sometimes share a joint and talk about teachers they hated most. Shelby managed to get decent grades from even the toughest ones, but now she lets her true feelings out. She doesn’t have to be a good girl anymore. Whenever she talks about high school, Shelby takes out her house key and digs it into the palm of her hand until she bleeds. No miracle. That’s Helene’s business. Shelby’s blood is strictly a penance. It’s for real.

I don’t think you should do that, Ben said to her when he realized what she was doing, drawing her own blood while she sat beside him.

You think? she goaded him. That’s a surprise. Did you know we used to think you were a werewolf?

Shelby guessed he’d stalk away, insulted, and maybe that’s what she wanted to happen. Her aloneness, after all, is all she has. Instead Ben said, I’m just worried about you.

Don’t be, Shelby warned him.

I wouldn’t mind being a werewolf, he said, which only made Shelby feel guiltier about all those years they’d made fun of him.


Ben was fine as long as he didn’t talk, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. Say something, Shelby often thinks when he’s blabbing on. But not everything. Ben now asks if it’s true that touching Helene’s hand can cure an illness. That’s what people say. They say you can smell roses in her room, that she speaks to you without talking, that she can send a message to you that will reveal what you need to know about your future or your past. The first miracle happened on the day Helene’s parents brought her home. Helene’s grandmother had been unable to walk due to arthritis for more than ten years, but she got out of her wheelchair and walked straight to Helene. She never used her wheelchair again, until one day she suddenly said she needed to lie down, that she was too tired to walk. She told Helene’s mom to put her in her chair and wheel her into Helene’s room; then the old woman got into bed with Helene and passed right there, in comfort and peace.

After that, roses appeared on the dry stalks of the hedges in February, and in the spring the wisteria beside the driveway, always a faded purple, bloomed a pure white. A toddler with a scar on his face nuzzled his cheek against Helene’s pale hand and by evening his skin was without blemish. Folks come from all over, from the Midwest and Florida and New Jersey and France. Helene is famous, that’s another difference between them. There are magazine articles about the miracle of the girl in the coma. People who have been healed merely by being in her presence often give testimonials. Like Helene’s grandmother, they can walk again. The asthmatics can breathe. Babies who never slept and cried all night become calm. Jittery teenagers buckle down and become A students. The roses always bloom on the day of the accident, huge, blood-red flowers that are impervious to snow and ice. Roses in February are clearly a miracle, and they’ve been photographed and set on the front page of Newsday. Helene’s parents have been interviewed in People magazine, and this year Channel 4 sent out a news team to interview those who’ve been healed.

Nobody with any brains would blame you for what happened to Helene, Ben Mink says.

Shelby looks at Ben with horror, amazed he has the nerve to utter Helene’s name in her presence. She thought he was a little smarter than that. She’ll talk to him, but clearly she’s not about to discuss her feelings, not with him or anyone else. Feelings are best left concealed. They can bite you if you’re not careful. They can eat you alive. Shelby has a tremor in her left hand. Sometimes she wakes in the middle of the night and finds she’s shaking. As it turns out, people say Helene’s left hand is the source of the miracles. The concept that mere touch can cure you and restore your faith disturbs Shelby. Nothing can restore her. Shelby tosses Ben a desperate look. Not you too.

He immediately picks up on her contempt. Not that I expect you to believe in that shit. I know I don’t.

Shelby once had a beautiful smile. That’s long gone. It disappeared on that night, and at this point she doesn’t even think it’s possible for her to smile. She’s frozen into the expression of someone who expects the worst. She taps her foot constantly now, as if she were running and getting nowhere.

I believe in tragedy, Shelby responds coldly. Not miracles.

Yeah, right. Faith is for idiots. Ben seems relieved. Statistics speak the truth.

You have to stop thinking. It’s going to drive us apart. Shelby keeps her good hand over her tremoring hand. She can feel her brain waves shift when she smokes pot. Pseudo-coma. Drift of snow. What a relief. Let’s not get too personal. I buy weed from you. Period.

On the way home, Shelby realizes she’s probably spoken more to Ben Mink in the past two years than she has to anyone else. She counts the people she’s come in contact with, most of them from the psych ward. Shrink. Nurse. Pathetic members of her therapy group. Parents. Clerk at the 7-Eleven. The orderly, twice her age, who told her to keep her mouth shut as he pulled down her pants. Until then her only kisses had taken place in a closet during parties at Helene’s house. The orderly took her into a closet as well, a utility closet where there were mops and buckets and folded sheets and towels. She wasn’t speaking then. She tried to tell him no, but the word sounded like a sob.

The orderly’s name was Martin. He was holding her by one wrist as he forced his other hand into her underwear. He told her if she made any noise at all she would never get out of the hospital. The staff would think she was hallucinating if she tried to blame him for anything. The nurses would drug her and tie her to her bed. And if they did, he would still do whatever he wanted to her.

So Shelby didn’t speak. Instead, she rose out of her body. She watched the whole thing happen. She never told anyone what he did to her on a nightly basis because she was afraid of him, but also because she was worth nothing to herself. One night when they were locked in the shower room, he told her she was never getting away from him while he fucked her up against the cold, tiled wall. He said she belonged to him, a seventeen-year-old girl still bruised from her car accident who had tried to slit her wrists and was committed to this ward. He fucked her a second time on the damp floor that smelled of Lysol. It was the same cleaner her mother used, only Sue Richmond preferred the lemon scent, and Shelby cried for the first time since the accident while he held her down. Crying did something to her. It unlocked a small part of her soul. She kept seeing her mother’s face, thinking about what Sue would say if she could see what was happening, so she told her mother on her next visit. Months had passed and Shelby looked like a waif. It was impossible not to notice all the weight she’d lost, the slit across one wrist, the bruises Martin left on her. When her mother came to visit she spoke a single sentence, the first in months, the words like glass. The orderly Martin is fucking me. She and Sue were looking into each other’s eyes and Shelby thinks that in that moment her mother saw everything inside her. Sue raced down the hall, a crow, a wild woman, a scorpion ready to sting. She grabbed the first nurse she saw and informed her that Shelby was leaving. Sue told the nurse that her daughter didn’t have to pack up, all they needed was a doctor’s release. They would wait by

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