A Thousand Broken Pieces

“The truth was, if Poppy could talk to me, I knew she’d be heartbroken at how her death had paralyzed me, wounded me irreparably. Yet, I couldn’t shake it. Rob told me that grief never left us. Instead we adapted, like it was a new appendage we had to learn to use. That at any moment, pain and heartache could strike and break us. But eventually we would develop the tools to cope with it and find a way to move on. I was still waiting for that day.”

Savannah’s reflection on Poppy’s desires and perspective reveals that Savannah knows that she is not living her life to the fullest. Additionally, she acknowledges that Poppy would be unhappy to learn that Savannah had limited her own life because of her grief. However, that acknowledgment is not sufficient motivation for Savannah to work through her grief, thus necessitating the trip.

“My leg bounced in agitation, and I fought to not inhale the freshness of the ice, to feel the sharpness of the cold air filling the arena. I pulled off my beanie and ran my hand through my dark hair. The tattoos on the backs of my hands stood out against my paler skin. Tattoos. So many tattoos and piercings now covered my body, just about erasing any sign of the person I was before.”

In romance novels, giving the male love interest tattoos or piercings is a common way to align them with the “bad boy” archetype, which Cael resembles in many ways. However, Cael’s tattoos and piercings hold deeper significance for his characterization, as this passage makes clear: The body modifications are an intentional attempt to distance himself from the person he was before his brother’s death. This kind of behavior is an indication that Cael feels not only grief but also guilt about his brother’s death.

“He was dressed in all black and kept his gaze to the floor as he followed who I assumed were his parents. I found myself watching him as he got closer. He seemed to be just as closed off as me, and for a moment, there was a flicker of camaraderie in my chest toward him.”

Savannah’s first impression of Cael indicates both her attraction to him and her instant feeling of safety in his presence. Unlike the other teens, who Savannah knows are also grieving, Cael has an aura that makes Savannah feel like they are together, fighting the same battle. Critically, the thing that makes Savannah feel like she could open up to Cael is the fact that he is as closed off as she is, reflecting their matching “walls” around themselves and developing the theme of The Necessity of Emotional Vulnerability.

“‘I’m not writing in it. What’s the point? What’s the point in any of this? He’s dead, and he’s not coming back.’ There was total silence in the room, but my inner rebellion cheered me on. I would never talk to Cill again. Not in any form. Especially not in some journal where the entries to our lost ones were nothing more than a pathetic fantasy, a way to trick us into feeling better.”

Cael’s anger about the journal becomes anger about Cillian’s death, reflecting how Cael blames Cillian for dying by suicide. The journal, which is meant to help Cael express these feelings, becomes a concrete acknowledgment that Cael bears a role in his own recovery—something that Cael does not accept. Since he sees this as something that happened to him, he does not understand why he now has to rebuild himself after the trauma that Cillian inflicted on him.

“For a moment, that thought filled me with a heady kind of lightness, remembering her that way. How much she’d adored her family. How intensely she’d loved us all, loved the world. How much she’d loved Rune—right until her very last breath. But like on most days over the past four years, that happy thought soon turned into the gut-wrenching memory of seeing her on that bed, looking out of the window, broken and frail, death looming over her, breathing labored.”

This passage illustrates the fundamental problem that Savannah has in working through her grief: She cannot separate her memories of Poppy’s life from those of Poppy’s death. Even when she immerses herself in positive memories, like Poppy’s love for her family and Rune, she inevitably falls into the memory of Poppy’s death. This situation frames the narrative as Savannah’s search for a way to overcome the invasive memory of death so that she can enjoy her positive memories of her sister.

“I was almost at the door when I heard, ‘Night, Peaches.’ The surprise that unexpected nickname brought to my chest was so strong it felt like it had left a mark. I turned to see a haunted yet kind expression on Cael’s face; then it quickly disappeared. 

‘A real Georgia peach, huh…’ he’d said that on the boat. 

‘Night, Cael,’ I said, voice a little bolder, and drifted up the stairs, for once letting my heart race. Because this time, its too-fast beat actually felt…nice.”

In another reference to A Thousand Boy Kisses, in which Rune’s nickname for Poppy is “Poppymin,” Cael coins a nickname for Savannah based on her home state of Georgia. Georgia is known for peaches, and Cael calls Savannah a “Georgia peach,” which then becomes “Peaches.” Cael calls Savannah this throughout the novel, and it both establishes Cael’s feelings for Savannah and creates a parallel between Poppy and Rune’s relationship and Cael and Savannah’s relationship, suggesting the latter’s comparable depth.

“‘Here,’ he rasped, and held out the notebook again, like it was made from glass, and he was afraid it would break in his hands. That sunbeam landed on his hand again. And I felt it. Felt Poppy guiding me to share this…to share my pain. ‘Read it,’ I said, and Cael’s face paled. He began to shake his head no. I placed my hand on his again and turned the cover to reveal Poppy’s first entry to me. ‘Please,’ I said, then added, ‘It would be nice for someone here to know her too.’”

As she does at many points in the novel, Savannah feels an otherworldly influence at work in her and Cael’s relationship, which she identifies as Poppy interfering in Savannah’s favor. However, the critical element of this passage is how Savannah identifies Poppy’s journal as a way for Cael to get to know Poppy even though she is dead. Savannah sees the journal as a physical manifestation of Poppy, which is the main reason she avoided reading it for so long. Sharing the journal with Cael is sharing both part of herself and the root cause of her grief.

“My knees felt weak, because I didn’t see how I would make it through this hell I was in. I understood the metaphor. The peaks represented our grief, obstacles in our way to happiness. But I would have backed myself to climb these peaks. I was physically fit. Had a sportsman’s determination. Coping with my grief? I didn’t back myself at all. I worried more than anything that I could never defeat it.”

Cael’s self-reflection paints coping with his grief as something in which he does not deserve to succeed. Unlike sports and exercise, Cael does not “back” himself, meaning that he does not support his own endeavor to overcome grief. This passage foreshadows the transition that Cael experiences from grief to guilt when he realizes that he unfairly blamed his brother and parents for his loss.

“I huffed a laugh as Lili and Jade began to race Travis and Dylan. I wondered if those who opened up at last night’s campfire felt any lighter today. Their reason for being here had been shared. They had been so brave. I wondered if it felt liberating to just place your pain in the hands of people who supported you. To pass it over to others in bite-size chunks so that your burden was lessened, and life would seem just that little bit less unkind.”

Part of the group experience is seeing how other teens react to each other, to therapy, and to their group interactions. After the teens have just sat around the bonfire and shared their experiences, Savannah wonders if the other characters feel as “light” as they seem to be. Her description of giving away grief in small pieces is precisely the goal of the experience; the bits of grief that they give each other only serve to make them all feel lighter, demonstrating The Power of Human Connection in Recovery. For Savannah, this is an early step toward sharing part of herself with someone other than Cael.

“She was teaching me more on this trip than anyone ever had. She was teaching me that happiness didn’t have to be big gestures and life-changing moments. It could be just this. Witnessing someone seeing snow for the first time. Hearing someone laugh, true and honest. I didn’t know something so simple could hit me so hard. Since Cillian, nothing, not one single thing, had brought me happiness. Until her.”

Cael’s feelings for Savannah rapidly overtake his grief, and he phrases this as “teaching.” However, as Leo and Mia note, Cael’s dependence on Savannah is not necessarily healthy. His happiness, which he sees as progress, is partly a distraction from the real work and therapy that Cael needs.

“I know your heart lies with the stars. With space and science and the unexplained wonders that keep you mesmerized. Although we see things differently, they are both just as special and as meaningful. Please don’t ever lose this. Don’t lose yourself to grief and bitterness.”

Poppy’s advice to Savannah reflects her awareness of her sister’s differing beliefs. Savannah believes that Poppy is now living among the stars, as a kind of heaven, and Poppy uses that belief as a way to comfort Savannah. Her advice is to hold on to faith or belief as a ward against bitterness and grief. As Poppy’s messages affect Savannah’s life on the trip, they also keep Poppy with Savannah in a more physical sense; Poppy is at once a star in the sky and a set of words on the page.

“‘Stars are energy, and people are energy too. The entire universe is made of energy. Some see that as science, and some people refer to that energy as God.’ I shook my head. ‘I lean toward science. It feels most right to me.’ I sighed at the heaviness these questions posed. ‘All I know is that there’s something bigger than I can ever comprehend.’”

A Thousand Boy Kisses centers heavily on Poppy’s belief in Christianity, God, and heaven. Here, Cole shows a different avenue to a similar conclusion by focusing Savannah’s faith through science (a faith that also manifests in her desire to become a doctor and pursue a cure for cancer). Even though Savannah is not sure if she believes in Poppy’s religion, she accepts that science poses questions and scenarios that have no definite answer, and within these unknowns, she sees an opening to conceptualize Poppy as continuing to exist as some sort of “energy.”

“Blackness. Black swirls laced with red. Red for blood and anger. Black for the loss and the state I’d been left in. Ice trickled down my spine, picking up speed until a thought came to mind—was this painting how Cillian had been feeling that night to do what he did? Nothing inside of his heart to live for? Death his only option. Death, to stop the pain. Death, to escape whatever hell life had become for him. He’d suffered in silence and died that way too.”

Cael’s painting breaks the illusion of positivity and joy that he had built with Savannah up to this point in the novel. After their promise to push aside their grief, Cael has avoided his feelings about Cillian’s death. Now, Cael is forced to confront those feelings of anger and sadness in the form of the painting, which he created in a kind of trance. The therapist, Miriam, calls Cael’s painting beautiful, but he does not see any beauty in it because he is still wrapped in these negative emotions. His repetition of “death” in the final sentences underscores this, suggesting that he remains trapped in the moment of Cillian’s death.

“‘But when I went home that night, I walked into my bedroom and saw an old Bruins game ticket on my desk. It was the first game we’d ever gone to together when we were kids. I’d pinned it to my wall after we’d come back. A memory I wanted to cherish forever.’ My pulse raced faster and faster. ‘He’d written seven words on the back.’ Cael’s voice was briefly stolen by grief before he cleared his throat and said, ‘I couldn’t do it anymore. I’m sorry.’”

As part of its exploration of the way people write and rewrite memories, the novel suggests that Cael’s story about Cillian’s death involves a rewritten memory that needs to be rewritten again. The ticket originally represented the love that Cael and Cillian shared, but Cillian overwrote that memory with his final words, an expression of his terminal battle with depression. Now, Cael is beginning the process of overwriting the memory of Cillian’s death with a positive memory of his brother and understanding of his predicament. This process will not be complete until the end of the novel, but the first step is telling Savannah what the ticket says.

“Dylan reared back. He wiped his eyes. ‘When we were talking about honoring our lost loved ones tonight, I couldn’t participate. How could I? No one even knew about us. And I’m terrified to say it out loud.’ 

‘You have now,’ I said, and Dylan’s brow furrowed in confusion. ‘You’ve shared your truth with me. You’ve told someone that you loved him romantically. You’ve unburdened yourself from your secret. In turn, you’ve unburdened Jose too.’”

Dylan’s struggle is unique in the novel since he cannot fully express his grief over losing Jose. He fears how his family and friends will react to his sexual orientation, but he finds the strength to tell Savannah. Embedded in Savannah’s response is her recognition of the need for human connection; even in telling Savannah alone, Dylan has taken an important step. The last lines reflect both the conceptual process of “letting go” and the literal process of coming out, as Dylan effectively reveals both his and Jose’s orientation.

“This was life. This, laughter and happiness, connection and play. The simplicity of this day had made me feel more alive than I had in years. And love. Loving Cael had been the single biggest blessing in my life. Allowing someone else into my heart was a happiness that I had chased away for too long. Not anymore. I wanted to hold on to what we had with every morsel of strength. Now that I had him, I couldn’t imagine losing him.”

A large part of Savannah’s journey involves supplementing the mixed memories of laughing and suffering with Poppy with new memories of fun and excitement with the group. Unlike Cael, who depends too heavily on Savannah to support his mental health, Savannah forms a healthy perception of Cael and their friends as avenues to explore and enjoy life. Nonetheless, this passage exposes the somewhat unhealthy element of Savannah’s love for Cael, which is a desperate attachment. Her refusal to lose Cael reflects her fear that other people she loves with be taken from her as Poppy was.

“‘For the good memories,’ I said quietly, just for Cael. He blinked back tears but nodded. My heart was in my throat as he placed his candle on the plate, cast it onto the river, and it began to drift away—a symbol for why we were all here. To try to let our loved ones go. I held my plate a moment longer than the others, and even closer to my chest. It was the hardest lesson so far, trying to learn to release Poppy from my heart.”

The candle symbolizes the love that Savannah feels for Poppy; releasing it is not about letting go of that love but about letting go of the pain and anxiety associated with holding on to the memory of Poppy. Other symbolic representations of Poppy in the novel, though explicitly positive, are vast and mysterious—e.g., stars and the northern lights. The candle is more concrete, representing the physical and mental barriers that Savannah needs to overcome to live a happy life.

“‘Exposure,’ I echoed. Mia and Leo told us it was time to face what had happened to our loved ones. That the previous countries had been building us up to this—the hardest of the steps. Here, we would face what had happened to our loved ones head-on. My blood ran cold just entertaining that. I had no idea what they had planned for us at the retreat. This part was obvious to see. We were helping people like us, just in another country, far away.”

For Savannah, exposure is not only about seeing other people struggling with loss but also about seeing people coping with terminal illnesses. Savannah’s ultimate goal is to help children with cancer, but her meeting with Tala confirms that not all cases of cancer can be cured and that loss is something that everyone must confront—and something that Savannah must accept both for her own peace of mind and so that she can fulfill her goal of becoming an oncologist.

“I didn’t want to. I felt charged with endless energy. I needed to run, to jog it off. I’d been running again every day, and my fitness was returning. It was helping. But now I wasn’t sure if running a million marathons would help cool this burning inferno inside of me. I didn’t want to be angry again. I couldn’t go back to that person I had been before.

Cael’s impulse to exercise recalls the first part of the trip, which was rooted in using exercise as a way to exhaust grief. However, Cael also recognizes that running has become a physical and metaphorical method of avoiding his grief. This is something that he no longer wants to do, and this passage shows him making the active choice to confront his feelings rather than run from them. Though this is critical, it is only one of the first steps to coping with grief.

“As the final note quivered on the string, vibrating into the body of the theater, it drifted over my head. I opened my eyes when the audience clapped in rapturous applause. I clapped too, but I struggled to stand. My eyes were wide, and my chest was raw. But it was from getting this part of me back, of my sister, my family. It wasn’t in sadness. It was in love and joy and hope. It was Poppy.”

Seeing an orchestra for the first time since Poppy’s death, Savannah fears that her memories of Poppy will tear her apart. However, having learned about accepting loss and remembering her lost sister happily, she instead listens to the orchestra and feels Poppy with her. Though Poppy is not physically present, Savannah can associate the music with her memories of Poppy, which now enhances the experience rather than ruining it.

“I had left Kyoto feeling full but also a bit raw. Seeing that many blossom trees in full bloom and seeing and speaking to Rune…it was beautiful but also difficult. It was the little things, I realized, that could trigger a pang of grief in your heart. A feeling so overwhelming and strong that, for a few hours, it could thrust you back into the fire. But I had learned to climb out of it, a little charred but not burned. That was progress.”

The insight that Savannah uncovers in this passage is that despite their impact on the course of one’s life, traumatic events are not the source of the pains and struggles that one faces day-to-day. Instead, it is “the little things,” like seeing a cherry blossom or something else that reminds her of Poppy, that can set off a chain reaction of grief, even after the work of healing is complete. Her goal, then, is not to never be sad again but to cope with sadness in healthy ways.

“My mom linked her arm through mine, and we headed straight to the retreat. The hard work was just beginning, but the love I had for Savannah, for my mom, my dad, for myself…and for Cillian. The love I had for all of them would get me through. And I would have Savannah back in my arms if it was the last thing I would do.”

Cael’s reflection on the love he feels for his family and Savannah, as well as the love they have for him, acts as both a source of strength and as motivation for his own progress. He wants to heal not only for himself but also for his family, and he knows that their support is part of how he can survive this process. His definite goal of meeting Savannah at Harvard serves as a reward for the hard work he is about to put in.

“I inhaled deeply and said, ‘It was so hard. But I had to get better. For you, for us, I had to—’

‘No,’ Savannah said, shaking her head. ‘Not better, Cael. You were healing. You were grieving. There is no better or worse to that. It just is. Your heart was broken, and you were mending it, day by day. And you have succeeded.’ She put her hand on my cheek and made me meet her tenacious blue stare. ‘You never needed to get better for me. You were always enough. Even when you were deep in the trenches. You were always enough.’”

Savannah’s clarification that Cael never needed to get “better” but only needed to heal recalls the discussion they had with Aika about kintsugi. The novel is not about how “broken” or “damaged” people experiencing grief are; rather, it is about how people may feel broken or damaged while processing grief. The truth of the novel is that grief is a process that changes people but that change is not necessarily a bad thing.