49 pages • 1 hour read
Matt de la PeñaI Will Save You
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2010A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Pages 254-306Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Pages 254-277 Summary
Kidd unsuccessfully searches for Devon. Olivia spots him and says they need to talk. However, when her friends pull her away, she suggests they meet later. Kidd agrees and hurries to Red’s tent. Peanut is there, but Red is not. The dog leads Kidd to the cliff where Red is drunk. Red explains that his son hit his head while skateboarding. Ben seemed fine, but he did not wake up the next morning. Drinking from the whiskey bottle, Red claims that their lives hang by a thread that could break at any moment. He pauses before asking something about Horizons. However, Kidd asks Red to wait while he runs back to meet Olivia.
Olivia asks Kidd to stop talking about the stalker. Reluctantly, Kidd agrees. When he says he must help Red, Olivia follows. Red’s eyes are closed, and the whiskey bottle is empty. Red’s phone rings, and they see that it is his sponsor, Bill the Deacon. When it rings again, Kidd answers and explains what happened. They carry Red to his tent. When he wakes up asking Kidd why he swallowed all those pills, Kidd pretends that Red is talking nonsense. They wait in silence until Bill arrives. When Kidd walks Olivia to her tent, she suggests that people reveal only slivers of themselves to others. She explains that her family is planning a surprise trip to New York which means that she will not return to the campground. Olivia proposes they watch the grunion run together.
Upset, Kidd finds Devon at the park and confronts him. Devon rants about how kids like them get nothing and that something must be done. When Kidd moves closer, Devon threatens him with a gun and continues to rage. Kidd struggles to breathe. Meanwhile, Devon brutally recaps the death of Kidd’s parents, adding that his mom shot herself to be free from her son. When Kidd charges, Devon knocks him in the head with the gun. Pointing the barrel at Kidd, he demands that Kidd close his eyes. Kidd expects to feel an explosion in his body, but it never comes. When he opens his eyes, Devon is running away. Kidd chases him through town until he loses him. Under the bridge, Kidd spots a book Olivia loaned him.
Pages 278-293 Summary
The next morning, Kidd cannot find Red. He tries to work, but constant thoughts of Devon and his cruel words haunt him. The day of the grunion run, Kidd finally finds Red, who gives Kidd an iPod as a thank you. He apologizes and explains that he has been in meetings the last couple of days. Kidd wants to tell Red everything, but he cannot. Instead, Red announces his hope to reunite with Maria and declares that “a man shouldn’t push away his woman [...] He should take care of her” (282).
Kidd buys a new sombrero for Red and heads to the cliff at Torrey Pines. He rereads the short story about the perfect couple and looks through his notebook, which calms him. Then, Kidd writes about Olivia.
That night, Kidd and Olivia look down at the crowd of people waiting for the grunion. Olivia gives Kidd a gift, but before he opens it, she confirms that she is going to New York. Although Kidd is happy for her, he also feels sick. He considers their scars; his will remain when hers is removed because she has money to fix things. As he wonders if he should be angry, he glimpses Devon below. Leading Olivia back to the chairs, Kidd opens her gift, which is a framed picture of him. He feels calmer knowing that Olivia will be safe in New York. Kidd tells her that she is beautiful. She pulls off her hat, and Kidd touches her face before they kiss.
Kidd sees Devon nearby. When Devon charges, Kidd grabs his sweatshirt and pushes him to the edge of the cliff. Olivia screams for him to stop, but Kidd insists that he is protecting her. She pleads that no one is hurting her. Devon laughs while Kidd remembers his mom’s advice to be better than his dad. When Devon taunts him, Kidd pushes Devon and watches his friend’s body hit the ground below. Kidd lays motionless as everyone races toward him and fish glide over his body, finally revealing that Devon and Kidd are the same person.
When Kidd wakes up, he feels pain everywhere. He expects to be on the beach but is not. No one is with him. Kidd questions what happened and wonders if Devon pushed him. He panics and cannot breathe.
Pages 294-296 Summary: “Philosophy 5: About How a Man Should Take Care of His Woman”
In Kidd’s letter to Olivia, which he wrote at Torrey Pines, he confesses that he has tried to write about her all summer but could not until now. Earlier that day, Kidd daydreamed about a future in which the two of them were together, and Kidd worked at the zoo. Although old, Peanut was with them. At night, Olivia would read or play piano, and they had a son named Ben.
Pages 297-306 Summary: “Dreams from Solitary Confinement”
Kidd floats through dawn, settling next to Olivia on the beach. Emotional, she reads Kidd’s letter to her. Kidd remembers falling but is confused. The ship is near the shore. Olivia continues reading, but then stops to look at Kidd, who feels pain in his entire body. As Olivia’s eye widen, the sun rises rapidly and stops directly over him. Olivia says his name. Kidd opens his eyes and moves his fingers and toes. Turning his head, he sees not a ship, but a framed photo of him on the fence, and not seaweed, but a tiled floor. Olivia is standing, pushing a button and screaming for help.
Kidd recognizes his surroundings. He is in a hospital. Doctors and nurses rush in with Red, Maria, and his Horizons therapist. An oxygen mask is placed on his face. The therapist asks him, Devon, a series of questions. Somewhere, someone says that his name is Kidd. The therapist implores him to remember how hard he worked to limit Devon’s presence in his head. Before the medical staff clears the room, Kidd rips off his mask, begging for answers. Olivia tells him he jumped off the cliff, trying to kill himself because he believed he was someone named Devon.
Instantly, memories flood back: swallowing pills, jumping off a roof, banging his head, sleeping under the bridge, stealing clothes, threatening the college guys with a gun, and entering the riptide. Kidd sees a picture of himself on the fence and recognizes that he has always tried to detach himself from this part of his identity, Devon.
Because of medicine in his IV, the scene morphs back to that of the beach. He begs Olivia to wait for him. She promises she will. He can still hear her voice. She reads the end of his letter to her, wondering if he can learn to let people in and get better. Then, Kidd divulges that in the perfect couple’s story, the look they share years later is “more important than ending up together” (305). Olivia is amazing and will lead a remarkable life, but that life will not include him. He hopes that someday they will meet on a street and share a look. He has been lucky just to meet Olivia. Their time together has made him feel like someone who has value and a future.
Pages 254-306 Analysis
Kidd realizes that he is the victim of his own actions. As he pieces together what happened, the narration is choppy, fast-paced, and confusing, mirroring his frantic realization that he jumped. Kidd’s description of the push reflects his disjointed, kinetic mindset. The long, breathless sentence features polysyndeton, where words and phrases are separated by the same conjunction, in this case “and.” The prose is manic and panicky:
I shoved him down the cliff and watched his body bounce-tumble-fall-stretch-fetal-thud into the thick sad sand and lay motionless, and everybody who was once waiting for grunion was now racing to my side and touching my arm, my back, my leg, and looking up the cliff at Olivia and then everything turned black and I felt slippery fish going on me and I heard Mr. Red screaming my name and screaming for everyone on the sand to back away from me (292).
The passage shifts pronouns from “him,” referring to Devon, to “my,” referring to Kidd. This reflects Kidd’s rapidly shifting thoughts and perceptions. In one sentence he moves from the belief that he pushed another person to the realization that he himself jumped. The long sentence creates a sense of urgency that comes with talking without pause. Kidd uses a series of hyphenated verbs to describe the fall, creating a fast-paced rhythm akin to a heart racing. The tone and structure of his jumbled thoughts mimics physiological reactions to panic, fear, and disbelief. The narrative structure makes Kidd’s swirling emotions visible to the reader.
Kidd is not the only one impacted by trauma. Red is still devastated over his son’s death. This makes him more empathic toward Kidd, who he sees as another son. In this way, the novel implies, trauma connects people.
When reflecting on Ben’s death, Kidd reveals how little he thinks of himself: “It didn’t seem fair that someone like Mr. Red’s kid was gone, and someone with problems like me was still here” (258). This illustrates how much of an impact Kidd’s trauma has had on his mental health. Sitting with Red and talking about the fragility of life reminds Kidd that “nothing mattered. And nothing was worth it. And no one cared” (259). Instead of feeling that life is precious, Kidd feels worthless and alone.
The extent of Kidd’s mental suffering is evident when he realizes he is in a hospital, not a prison. The Horizons therapist reveals that Devon has been plaguing Kidd for some time. She urges him to remember their sessions when they “worked so hard to limit Devon’s presence.” (302). This highlights how much Kidd has grappled with his dangerous thoughts and behaviors, and how he has crafted a new identity to cope with them.
These chapters explore The Struggle for Healing and a New Beginning. For example, Red battles with alcohol addiction and his relationship with Maria. He verbalizes the need for support and emphasizes how human connection is pivotal when struggling. When he sees Kidd days after getting drunk, Red admits: “‘A guy can’t do everything on his own, Kidd. That’s what I realized. Sometimes I’m gonna need to lean on friends. Like you and Bill” (281). Red struggles because he feels he must handle everything on his own. He acknowledges that he must start fresh with those he loves.
Kidd also struggles to start over. In his letter to Olivia, he shows that he has come to terms with himself and his life. Instead of being angry about his differences from Olivia, he believes he is “the luckiest person in the world” because he got to experience so much with her this summer (306). He acknowledges how her presence has helped him heal, noting: “And just knowing you for these two and half months. It’s made me think differently about myself. And it’s made me feel like I mean something in the world. And how maybe I could even have a future” (306). His optimism is a result of months and years of struggle. The tone at the end is hopeful, as if Kidd is ready to begin a new life.
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