“Tell her you love her. Girls need the words.”

This instruction from Macy’s mother introduces her sensibilities. She is a woman who loves words, understands how to talk to her daughter, and knows that Duncan, Macy’s father, may not understand how to communicate with her. Elliot shows his love for Macy by giving her words.

“I had friends who had stopped knowing how to talk to me. […] What was the point of a weekend retreat where I couldn’t retreat from the one truth that seemed to stall my heartbeat every few minutes?”

Macy’s main concern is trying to fit in with her peers and escape the pain of her mother’s death. Retreating from this truth proves impossible though, and instead of finding a friend who she hides her feelings from, she must confront her feelings to make friends.

“I think of her everywhere. She is everywhere, in every moment, and also, she’s in no one moment. She misses every single one of my moments and I’m not sure who that is harder for: me surviving here without her, or her without me, existing wherever she is.”

This is how Macy explains her feelings about her mother’s death. Just as her mother’s love was all-encompassing, her absence becomes all-encompassing as well. Explaining this to Elliot shows how his support allows her to access and express her deepest and most painful feelings.