45 pages • 1 hour read
Mikki Daughtry, Rachael LippincottAll This Time
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 12-23Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 12 Summary
Chapter 13 Summary
Kyle gets a haircut, which reveals the scar on his forehead. When Marley touches the scar, Kyle feels “strange, like my body is waking up” (100). Marley believes in the power of storytelling; stories have the potential to reach and connect with an audience. Kyle tells Marley the story of his relationship with Kim. They were a cliché because he was a football player and she was a cheerleader, but everyone admired them. He admits that they fought as well. Kyle realizes: “Something about telling the whole story makes all the tiny cracks more visible” (103).
Kyle acknowledges that as idyllic as his relationship with Kim was on the surface, he often felt out of control. Marley suggests that Kim’s haunting of Kyle is another way of Kyle practicing control. Marley calls Kim an idiot for breaking up with Kyle. She encourages him to think of what he wants out of life. If he can’t play football anymore, she recommends coaching or writing about football. Kyle invites Marley to his house for dinner as a thank you for being a good friend and a great listener.
Chapter 14 Summary
While shopping for groceries with his mom, Kyle believes he sees Kimberly again speaking to and reaching out for him. Kyle cooks dinner for Marley, thinking that his mother will work late. Marley comes over and shortly after, Kyle’s mother arrives, eager to meet Marley. Marley mysteriously runs away. Kyle finds her at the pond, cuddling a duck in her lap. She admits that she has a difficult time meeting new people, that her connection with Kyle when they met was an exception. Kyle comforts her. As he and his mom sit down for dinner, Sam arrives with beer, assuming that Kyle’s mother would be at work. Sam asks what the special dinner is for; Kyle is nervous to tell him about Marley, certain that he wouldn’t understand.
Chapter 15 Summary
Kyle attends a touch football game with his old high school buddies, Paul and Dave. Sam is there too. He’s mad at Kyle after hearing about Marley, and avoids him. Kyle and Sam argue about Marley. Sam accuses Kyle of moving on too quickly. Sam admits that he was in love with Kimberly and would never have let her go. Kyle is shocked, but recognizes that while he was with Kimberly, he had been selfish. He saw “the world, my friends, my girlfriend, through my lens. I didn’t once bother seeing it through any of theirs” (125).
Kyle returns home bruised from his fight with Sam. His mother points out that he’s a hopeless romantic; he forced a relationship with Kim without allowing either of them to grow on their own. Kyle packs up Kim’s belongings, including the charm bracelet, to give to Kimberly’s parents.
Chapter 16 Summary
Kyle asks Marley about her sister Laura. Their hands touch and Kyle feels a quaking current between them. Marley walks off, reminding Kyle that they agreed to just be friends. Kyle realizes he wanted to kiss Marley. Kyle sees Sam at Kim’s grave. Kyle decides that Kim was right—he needs to live a life without her, but so does Sam. Sam and Kyle make up.
Chapter 17 Summary
Kyle cooks another dinner for Marley. She brings him hydrangeas, the symbol of gratitude. Kyle reads Marley’s stories while she reads his sports articles. Kyle is impressed by her stories’ level detail and creativity. She tells him the story of a girl who wants love and finds it with the man on the moon. Kyle realizes that he’s in love with Marley.
Chapter 18 Summary
Kyle searches online for an internship to apply to. His mother gives him the business card of Scott Miller, a sports reporter for the Times who used to cover Kyle’s games. Sam invites Kyle to play touch football. Kyle asks to borrow the car—it’s the first time he’s wanted to drive since the accident.
Kyle meets with Marley, buoyed by his upcoming interview with Scott and his return to driving. He kisses her. Marley sees a little girl approaching the street. She grabs the girl and returns her to an older girl nearby, accusing the older girl of letting her sister nearly die. She finally tells Kyle what happened to her twin sister, Laura. Laura and Marley were identical twins. One day, they switched hairstyles and pendants to play a trick on someone. When Laura remembered she had Marley’s pendant, she took it off to give it back to Marley. The pendant fell into the street. When Laura went to retrieve it, a car hit and killed her. Marley blames herself for Laura’s death. Kyle comforts Marley and assures her that their story won’t be a sad one.
Chapter 19 Summary
Kyle meets with Scott. Scott has read Kyle’s former high school newspaper profiles of athletes. He hires Kyle for an internship to write for the Times. Kyle buys a kite for Marley; he remembers her admiring kids as they played with kites, a memory of her own childhood. Marley is happy for him about the internship but ignores the kite. Marley gives Kyle a peony, the symbol of good luck and fortune. Kyle insists they play with the kite. It takes them a few times to sail it in the air. The kite flies away. It starts to rain, and Marley picks snails up from the ground so no one will step on them.
Chapter 20 Summary
Marley joins Kyle at his house to help him pass out candy on Halloween. Kyle is dressed as a zombie football player and Marley as a snail: “’We’re quiet, we’re shy, and we hide’” (169). Marley and Kyle realize they’re both dressed up as versions of the people they used to be. They embrace and have sex. In bed with Marley, Kyle has a nightmare of the accident with Kim. He is comforted by waking up next to Marley.
Chapter 21 Summary
Chapter 22 Summary
Sam tells Kyle he’s leaving for UCLA. Kimberly had helped him with his essays, and he’s finally off the waitlist. He confesses that he’s still in love with Kimberly and doesn’t know how to get over her. Sam also reveals that he feels guilty for not having saved Kyle from his career-ending football injury. Sam says he didn’t pursue Kimberly out of guilt. Kyle is sad to hear that Sam is moving away, but he’s also happy for him.
Chapter 23 Summary
Kyle fills his time taking journalism classes at the community college, writing for his internship, and spending time with Marley. He misses Sam but they FaceTime regularly. Kyle arranges a makeshift program where Marley teaches middle schoolers how to write stories by the pond. Kyle helps Marley pick out a rescue dog from the pound. She calls her new puppy Georgia. They take a picture together, looking happier than Kyle would have thought possible when meeting Marley many months before.
Chapters 12-23 Analysis
These chapters develop Kyle’s character. In discovering Sam’s true feelings for Kimberly, Kyle is forced to confront his selfishness. Kyle didn’t notice that Sam was in love with Kim; he hadn’t thought much about Sam’s desires. This echoes Kimberly’s need to discover herself outside of her relationship with Kyle. Before the accident, Kyle had thought only of his wants without considering what Sam or Kimberly wanted. Sam was selfless when Kim was alive, keeping his feelings to himself and maintaining the farce of their friendship triangle. While Sam’s pain may not be equal to Kyle’s, Daughtry and Lippincott make the point that in tragedy, it doesn’t matter whose pain is worse. Rather than compete for most traumatized, tragedy should bring people like Sam and Kyle together.
The authors illustrate the importance of embracing the moment. Sam’s unvoiced feelings inspire him to live without regret. He missed his chance of admitting his love to Kimberly and will now have to wonder what if. If Sam accepts this as a learning experience, he can live for the present moment.
The narrative points to the link between honesty and connection. Sam and Kyle are finally open with one another, which leads to a revival of their friendship. Though Sam has a difficult time accepting that Kyle has moved on with Marley, both Sam and Kyle ultimately discover that to keep moving forward, they must be patient with one another’s processes. In developing empathy for one another, Sam and Kyle also develop more sympathy for themselves and their own journeys.
Kyle learns that he has an issue with wanting to exert control. He controlled his relationship with Kim, his friendship with Sam, and his future through football. His injury, the car accident, and Kim’s death derailed his ability to control things. Kyle continues to find ways to control his life, but now he does so while considering how this affects others. This shows growth and is typical of YA. In young adult fiction, young people learn how to reflect on their strengths and improve their weaknesses. Teenagers and young adults especially only just begin to see the ripple effects of their decisions and behavior. Kyle has anxiety about the world around him. The transition years of high school into college force young people into making decisions about their futures in a complex world; exerting control over oneself and others is a coping mechanism.
Marley and Kyle solidify their relationship. The shift happens quite quickly, emphasizing the powerful connection between them as well as Kyle’s authentic desire to feel better. Marley and Kyle provide what the other needs in a partner. Marley is a good listener and pinpoints exactly what Kyle needs to hear, while Kyle helps Marley come out of her shell. Marley encourages Kyle to create and pursue new dreams, which helps him practice his mother’s advice to always look forward. Kyle’s internship is an important plot development, as it gives him the confidence to continue thinking about his future. Within a year of the accident, thanks to his support systems, Kyle continues growing. We see this when he starts driving again and enrolls in community college classes.
Flowers again symbolize relationship and character growth. Hydrangeas represent gratitude, emphasizing the gratitude that Marley and Kyle have for one another. The peony, as the symbol of good luck and fortune, represent Kyle’s new job and school opportunities. The kite and snail are also symbols. The kite represents Kyle’s love language: giving gifts. It also represents the careful attention he pays to other people’s stories, highlighting one aspect of his personality that challenges his selfishness. The kite is a representation of perseverance: It takes a few tries to get it sailing, paralleling human resilience through tragedy and trauma. The snail personifies Marley’s personality. Snails are quiet, shy, and like to hide, just like her. Though Marley is trying to change for the better, a snail can’t survive without its shell. This raises the question of whether Marley can or should transform herself.
Marley mirrors Kyle’s survivor guilt. Laura’s death is a tragic accident, highlighting the injustice of early and avoidable death. Marley feels that her mother blames her because she and Laura were supposed to be looking out for one another. Marley internalizes this blame and takes it out on herself. She eats very little, dives deeper into her shyness, and is more nervous than ever about meeting new people. Kyle has not yet met Marley’s family, implying that Marley is hiding him from them or vice versa, and highlighting tension within her family.
Marley uses storytelling to escape dealing with Laura’s death. This is Marley’s own version of control, where narration weaves happy stories of sisters, love, and magic. Marley’s quiet and shy exterior is juxtaposed with these elaborate and deep stories. Her interiority is an important part of her characterization. It seems unlikely that she would be able to have a romantic relationship, which emphasizes the strength of her and Kyle’s connection. Marley loves storytelling because of its power. The storyteller reveals themselves through narrative constructs, and the reader connects with their voice. Marley cares about this connection; it is difficult for her to make connections with people in real life, but she can express herself through fiction. Through Marley, the authors develop the theme of Fact Versus Fiction; though Marley’s stories are made up, they wield potent results in the real world, which we’ll see later in the book.
