Content Warning: The source text includes mentions of suicidal ideation, detailed depictions of obsessive-compulsive disorder, and references to alcohol addiction, disordered eating, and anti-LGBTQ+ bias.

In the moments before Henna and Mikey kiss for the first time, Henna tells Mikey: “Here’s this future we’re looking at. And it’s not far away like the future normally is. It’s here, now. Like any second” (123). This articulation of the changing proximity of “the future” encapsulates what all of the teenagers in this book feel: that their high school years are a kind of holding pattern in which they can mature as they prepare for this oncoming future. For Mikey, this holding pattern in a comfortable space because it doesn’t require change—so long as he stays in the limbo of high school, he doesn’t have to risk losing his friendship with Henna by expressing his feelings for her, and he doesn’t have to face the reality that life after high school will meaning moving away from the emotional support Jared and Mel provide.

The rapidly approaching future is also intimidating for Mikey because the internal lives of the adults in his life remain largely inaccessible to him. As Mikey ruminates on why none of the adults in town seem to believe in the supernatural, he wonders “What happens to you when you get older? Do you just forget everything from before you turned eighteen? Do you make yourself forget?” (29).