I’m in someone’s room, in someone’s bed, and I don’t know how I got her. Then I remember and it all comes crashing down in a thousand jagged pieces. I jerked the covers back, relieved that all my clothes are still on. The clock on the nightstand says seven a. m. The bus leaves in an hour. (35)During this moment in time Sid realizes that she had made a big mistake about going to meet that boy. What Happens Next by Colleen Clayton is about a girl, Sid, who goes on a school ski trip to the mountains. Well after being left alone by her friends she meets a boy, Dax, on the ski lift.
After she makes a deal about going to a party later that night she spends the rest of the day with him. Later back at the cabin she tries to convince her friends to go with her to the party but, they reject it and try to get Sid not to go. Sid sneaks out anyways to go find him. When she come up to the cabin where the party was supposed to be at, Dax says that the party was canceled so they go in side. The next morning she can’t remember anything, she’s not in her cabin, her side is bleeding, and a lock of her curly red hair is missing.
So she thinks of the worst but shakes that though out of her head. By time she gets back to her own cabin the police are there. With a four day suspension and two days worth of detention they head home. Through the rest of the book Sid starts running at least six miles a day, turns bulimic, quits eating, and loses all of her friends for about three months. But there is one good thing to come out of this, Corey. Corey is in charge of the AV room which is where Sid changes her class to because is can’t stand being in her last class because of her ex-best friend.
Corey and Sid become very close and soon start to date. After she gets a job at a local diner, her friends back in her life, along with Corey too she starts to love life, until she looks in the mirror. She sees that her ribs are showing and she is 50 pounds lighter than she was seven months ago on the ski trip. So she starts to change that to and starts eating again, quits throwing up, and stops running. But then, while hanging out with her friends while on break she sees this newspaper with a picture of Dax on it.
But the name was Tom, he was 28, and was arrested for at least a dozen rapes. At this point Sid is on the floor crying. She tells her friends what she remembers from that night at the ski resort and the newspaper article. Instead of telling Corey what happened they get into a fight. After Corey left her standing on the sidewalk, she goes to a new and completely empty house that her mom is trying to sell. She starts remembering more on what happened the night at the ski resort until she gets interrupted by a hug from Corey behind her.
Her friends told him everything along with her mom. “I watch as the endless ribbons of water rock and swell under a quiet, cobalt sky, and I choose to believe. I choose to believe that I will be okay. ” (310) In the book What Happens Next when she is in her lowest point she doesn’t tell anyone not even the closest people to her. She doesn’t tell anyone that she could have been raped or about how she doesn’t remember anything after she met up with Dax. “You would think seven months and four days would be enough time, right?
Enough time to work up the nerve to just open my mouth and tell them. But it’s not. For me it’s not” (299) I think the reason that people don’t have anyone to be there for them at their lowest point is because they don’t open up. They’re afraid that they will treated differently or be mad or something. I think that’s why people don’t have anyone in that point of their lives because they are to scared to open up to someone they love, admit they have a problem, and see how they would react. “Open your mouth!
Tell the PTA mom what happened! You need to go to the hospital! ” (thoughts in her head. 40) I think there is one more element to answering my big question. I think that the people they tell their problem to and react in leaving them don’t understand what they are going through like my brother he didn’t have a lot of friends in middle school, and he started falling way behind in homework and failing his classes. My parents solution was to yell at him and hope that he will start doing better.
My solution was to tell him to go back to his normal self, but all he did was rebel himself farther. Going back I wish I understood what he was going through because if I did I wouldn’t have said the thing that I did. I would have been there from him more and just talked to him. Nowadays if he has a problem or did something he will come to me before he even thinks about going to our parents. So that’s why I think that the people aren’t there for the people that need help is because they don’t understand what the person is dealing with and they din’t understand it..
