For fans of Sarah Dessen and Jennifer Niven comes a breathtakingly original contemporary YA novel about love, grief, art, and the tiny choices that change our lives.
Emma blames herself when a freak accident at a pool party leaves Hunter, the townâs rising track star and her former boyfriend, paralyzed from the waist down. As she struggles with anxiety, loneliness and regret, she begins to obsessively paint portraits of legs and feetâHunterâs legs and feetâand for the first time receives critical acclaim and notice for her artwork.
But what started as therapeutic for Emma ends up deepening her guilt. Does creating meaningful art require retreating inward toward self-expression, or striving outward toward recognitionâor can it somehow be both?
Searching for one whole, authentic identity, Emma grapples with love, ambition, grief, homecoming, andâultimatelyâredemption.
For fans of Sarah Dessen and Jennifer Niven comes a breathtakingly original contemporary YA novel about love, grief, art, and the tiny choices that change our lives.
Emma blames herself when a freak accident at a pool party leaves Hunter, the townâs rising track star and her former boyfriend, paralyzed from the waist down. As she struggles with anxiety, loneliness and regret, she begins to obsessively paint portraits of legs and feetâHunterâs legs and feetâand for the first time receives critical acclaim and notice for her artwork.
But what started as therapeutic for Emma ends up deepening her guilt. Does creating meaningful art require retreating inward toward self-expression, or striving outward toward recognitionâor can it somehow be both?
Searching for one whole, authentic identity, Emma grapples with love, ambition, grief, homecoming, andâultimatelyâredemption.
Junior year: December 19
âYou canât mope around and avoid Hunter forever,â CĂ©line says.
âWhy not?â That is, in fact, exactly what I plan to do the rest of winter break.
âBecause you canât.â In the background, there is a rustling sound; I picture CĂ©line standing in front of her open closet, rifling through her thrift-store gems, trying to decide what to wear tonight. It doesnât matter what she decides. Whatever she wears, she will look effortlessly chic and put-together.
I flop backwards onto my bed. âYou didnât see his face. It was like⊠like heâd been slapped.â A snake of guilt coils around and around my stomach. Still, I donât regret breaking up with him.
âDonât worry about Hunter. Itâll be a huge party. You can avoid him.â
I laugh. âThatâs even weirder! Being at the same party and not even acknowledging each other? Besides, I bet heâll come over and talk to you. Just to show me he still can.â
âWhat does that mean?â
âHeâll want to rub it in. Even though we broke up, you two are still friends. Itâs like he stole you from me.â
âNobody stole anybody. And who knows, he might not show up.â
âDid he text you? Have you talked to him?â
CĂ©line sighs. âNo. But câmon, Em!â Her tone shifts into pleading. âAll I want is to go to a party with my best friend. Thatâs all Iâve wanted all semester long. Is that too much to ask?â
It has always been hard for me to say no to CĂ©line. And now? Now that sheâs played the âall semester longâ card? Now thereâs no way I can beg out of Robbie Zwickâs party.
âOkay, okay,â I surrender. âCan I raid your closet for something to wear?â
*
Robbie Zwick lives in The Keys, a ritzy neighborhood that opens directly onto the driftwood-studded beach. The houses are a blank-faced assembly line of white stucco walls and terra-cotta roofs. Twin rows of palm trees arch their shaggy fronds over the sidewalks. Robbieâs house has been firmly established as a party spot since freshman year; his parents, both surgeons, are often working late or out of town, leaving Robbie to fend for himself with their platinum credit card and his fake ID. They have a state-of-the-art stereo, an ornately tiled pool and hot tub surrounded by a large wooden deck, and neighbors who never call the police to complain about the noise.
I gaze around the pool deck, enjoying the hazy film settling over my thoughts. Lizzo thumps from the stereo and a dance floor is slowly forming over by the barbeque grill, under the potted palms. I bob my head to the beat, taking sips from my red plastic cup, surprisingly glad to be here. Something is going to happen tonight. I can sense it. Iâm home for the holidays, buzzed from rum-and-Cokes, and the air feels charged with possibility, and there is Mark Sampson, taller than I remember, and heâs lost his acne, and I could flirt with him, if I wanted to. Iâm single now. I could even kiss him in some dark corner of Robbieâs house.
But I wonât kiss Mark Sampson. I wonât even flirt with him. Maybe if I were a different type of person, the type of person who likes to cause a scene and be the center of drama, maybe then I would kiss him. Anabelle would kiss him, simply to prove she could. But my breakup with Hunter happened mere hours ago, and I donât particularly want to kiss anyone else. Davidâs face flashes into my brainâmy treacherous brainâbut I push the thought away. He is thousands of miles away. And he is Anabelleâs.
Hunter would inevitably find out if I kissed someone else at Robbie Zwickâs party. At a party like this, no matter how discreet two people try to be, someone will stumble [HS1]Â on them looking for the bathroom, or notice their disheveled hair or misbuttoned shirts or creeping blush when they glance at each other, and word will travel around the party and pop up the next morning on social media and pretty soon everyone will be talking about it. If Hunter had been the one to break up with me, then maybe I could rebound with someone else tonight. But as the Dumper, the only acceptable post-breakup hookup is to reconcile and make out with the Dumpee. And I am not going to do that, no matter how drunk I get.
I glance around for CĂ©line, who is supposed to keep me from doing anything that will be gossiped about tomorrow. Almost as soon as we arrived, she slipped her hand out of mine, saying she would get us both drinks. But she didnât come back. I eventually gave up and poured my own rum-and-Coke, and now I canât find CĂ©line anywhere. Iâm willing to bet the real reason she dragged me here tonight is that sheâs hoping Hunter and I will get back together. She was my friend first, but now sheâs Hunterâs friend tooâand the two of them have gotten closer all semester, while Iâve been thousands of miles away. Instead of a Venn diagram with me in the middle, the three of us morphed into an equilateral triangle. It must be awkward for her now, with us broken up. Now weâll go back to a Venn diagram again, only instead of me in the middle, it will be CĂ©line in the middle.
Someone bumps into me from behind and I nearly stumble into a bush.
âOh crap, sorry,â a familiar voice says. I regain my balance and look up into Matt Haywardâs kind brown eyes.
âHey Emma,â he says, a smile in his voice. As if everything is normal. As if I didnât just smash his best friendâs heart to smithereens. âYouâre home.â
âYep.â Home. I thought Wabash was starting to feel like home, but then I arrived in Buenaventura for winter break and my whole body loosened up. Thereâs something nice about relaxing back into my old self, like slipping on a comfy pair of well-worn jeans.
I expect Matt to nod goodbye and continue on his way, but he doesnât seem in a rush. âHowâs art school?â he asks. âWhere is it, again? Ohio?â
âIndiana.â Wabash Academy for the Arts is a small private boarding school tucked amid the quilted cornfields between Indianapolis and Chicago. I still canât believe I got the scholarshipâwhen I applied last spring, it felt like throwing glitter at the stars. Like blowing out the candles on your birthday cake and making an outrageous wish.
And then my outrageous wish came true, and I learned that wishes can be complicated beneath the surface.
âSo youâre happy there?â Matt asks.
âYeah,â I answer automatically. âI am.â My tone comes out more defensive than I mean it to be. When I received the scholarship, it seemed like the decision was already made for me. Like there wasnât even a choice. Of course I would go. Itâs the opportunity of a lifetime.
âI mean, Indiana is super cold,â I continue. âBut I like the snow. And art school is great.â Because in a lot of ways, it is great. But also it is frustrating, and scary, and exhilarating, and lonely.
Mattâs looking at me with that same openness I recognize from that afternoon we sat in his car together, parked in my driveway, as the sunlight slanted toward dusk. Like he knows there is more for me to say and is patiently waiting for me to say it.
But while I did unload my thoughts and fears to him six months ago, tonight I take a sip of my drink, swallowing down my words. I donât know how to capture the layers of my life in Wabash, how to explain it to someone on the outside.Â
           âI couldnât live somewhere that cold,â Matt says when itâs clear Iâm not going to elaborate. âWeâre spoiled here. Beach life.â
           âYou get used to it,â I tell him. Which is true. And also not.
Yesterday, I had boarded my flight home in the middle of an Indiana winter: gray and brown and barren. Salt-crunched roads, dirty snow hulking along the curbs. Icy winds that slam your face whenever you turn a corner, making your eyes water and your eyelashes freeze. When I exited the airport terminal into the warm smog of Los Angeles, it was like Iâd time-traveled back to summer. Everyone is wearing T-shirts and flip-flops even though itâs a week before Christmas. Here in Southern California, you can even skinny-dip in the winter, thanks to heated pools.
âWell, Iâll see you around, Emma,â Matt says, heading toward the keg. âWelcome home.â
âThanks.â He must have heard from Hunter that we broke up, but heâs still being nice to me. Thatâs Matt for you. I think of his small warm car, the way he handed me the box of tissues. A girl like you.
I watch the back of Mattâs head until he disappears into the crowd. A cool breeze sweeps in from the ocean, smelling of salt. My bare arms break out in goosebumps. The salt air smells both fresh and rank, both cleansing and decayed, in a way I canât fully explain to my Wabash friends who have never lived by the ocean.
I breathe in deeply. Once, after a day at the beach, Hunter buried his face in my hopelessly tangled, windblown hair and called me a goddess.
I push the thought away, crossing my arms over my chest even though my mom says crossed arms make me look unapproachable and CĂ©line once tipsily admitted that, yes, some people do think Iâm a little aloof. I gaze around the backyard, searching for CĂ©line. Across the pool, Hunter casually rubs the back of his neck, a gesture that sends a pang through my chest. He is talking to Siggy Taylor, who everyone knows is a huge flirt.
The thing is, I hadnât planned to break up with Hunter this morning. I was hoping to arrive back in Buenaventura and realize that my growing doubts all semester were just flimsy ghosts, and that when I saw Hunter again in person, I would not want to break up with him at all. Or, at the very least, I was going to wait and break up with him in January, right before catching a plane back to Indianapolis for the spring semester. That way Hunter and I could have one last hurrah, one final nostalgic run-through of all our favorite hangouts and hookup spots around town. I would have someone to keep me company during the three p.m. Christmas Eve dinner at my grandmotherâs nursing home, a place that always makes me sad. And I would be invited to the Murray familyâs annual cookie-decorating party, an afternoon Iâve genuinely been looking forward to since last Christmas, when Hunterâs mom gushed over my detailed precision with sugar icing and food coloring.
But when Hunter came over this morning, all of my careful plans fell to pieces. I knew I couldnât make it through winter break pretending everything was fine between us. I desperately wished I had stuck with my decision to break up with him over the summer. That was when we were meant to break up. All this time weâve been prolonging the inevitable.
I glance back. Hunter leans against a palm tree, alone. The tree is strung with white Christmas lights that sway erratically in the breeze, casting shadows on his face. Siggy must have gone off to flirt with someone else. Hunter is wearing a faded cross-country T-shirt, the one Iâd borrowed and worn it to school when we first started dating, a badge of ownership announcing to the world that we were together.
That seems so long ago. Another life.
Hunter alternates between staring gloomily into his beer can and gazing around the pool deck. Is he deliberately looking at everyone except for me? Heâs refused to meet my eyes since this morning, when the breakup words came spilling out of me.
I feel terrible for hurting him. I want to tell him that. Later, maybe. I sip my rum-and-Coke. Later, maybe Iâll walk over and tell him, Iâm so sorry, Hunter. Iâm sorry for the way things ended. Maybe heâll turn and stalk away, maybe heâll splash beer in my face, maybe heâll push me into the pool. But no matter what his reaction is, I know things will be better once the words are out.
Because this morning everything was so abrupt, so messy and unfinished. I want Hunter to know that I do care about him. I always will. I wish things could have been different. I wishâ
âIs that Emma Mason?!â
Siggy Taylor sways a little in her heeled sandals and string bikini, silver starfish necklace dangling into her cleavage. Siggy does not talk much to me out in the real world, but for some reason drunk Siggy is one of my loudest admirers.
I push my thoughts away from Hunter. Iâll wait to apologize. Iâll give him space. Who knows where CĂ©line disappeared to; for now, at least, Iâve got Siggy to distract me.
âOh my godddd!â Siggy yells, squeezing her bony arms around my shoulders. âItâs so good to see you!!â
âYou too.â I pat Siggy on the back gently. Once, at a previous Robbie Zwick party, Siggy spent twenty minutes holding both of my hands in her own, marveling at my âartistic fingersâ and pretending to read my fortune. âYou have great love in your future, and great sadness also,â Siggy had intoned, her eyes momentarily looking quite sober as they latched onto mine, and I remember feeling a shiver down my spine as I pulled my hands away from her grasp.
Now, Siggy steps back but keeps her hands on my shoulders. Her fingers are surprisingly strong and her silver rings are cold against my skin.
âOh my god, Emma,â Siggy says, each word a sour alcoholic burst of breath upon my face. âAre you okay? I heard what happened.â
âYou mean me and Hunter?â I flick a strand of hair away from my eyes, trying to seem nonchalant.
Siggy nods, her movements exaggerated and slow. âHe told me what happened. Iâm here for you. Iâm here for you, Emma.â
âThanks, but itâs really okay. Iâm fine. We grew apart, you know?â
Siggyâs eyes are watery. âI canât believe he would do that to you.â
âNo, itâs my fault,â I clarify. âIâm the one who broke up with him.â
âThatâs right, you broke up with him!â Siggy exclaims, waving her arms wildly. âOf course you broke up with him! I mean, how could you not, after what he did?â
My throat tightens. âWait, what? What are you talking about?â
âI canât believe he would cheat on you with some slut from Roosevelt.â Siggy clasps my hand, her fingers squeezing mine in a way that is probably meant to be reassuring. But I am not reassured. A wave of nausea rolls through my gut.
âWhat?â I ask. âWhere did you hear that?â Blood pounds in my ears.
Siggy bends forward and rests her forehead on my shoulder, as if the weight of her bleached hair is suddenly too much. âEveryoneâs talking about it,â she mumbles.
I remember watching Siggy and Hunter across the pool, how Hunter rubbed his hand across the back of his neck, the way he does when he is nervous. âDid Hunter tell you that?â I ask. My voice is soft and hollow, an echo of itself.
Siggy nods, her head still resting on my shoulder. Her hair grazes my arm, tickling unpleasantly. Her head is heavy and I want to push her away. My heartbeat quickens. Doubt settles in, even as I try to disarm it. Who does Hunter even know at Roosevelt? Is it that Ashley girl, from the concert?
âIâm sorry,â Siggy murmurs.
âHunter wouldnât cheat on me,â I insist. âHe wouldnât. Heâs only saying that because heâs pissed I ended things.â Even to myself, the words are not convincing. Had Hunter cheated on me? Is that why he canât even look at me? Maybe heâs not heartbroken after allâmaybe heâs guilt-ridden.
Or maybe heâs proud. Why else would he tell Siggy, unless he wanted word to get around the party and back to me? He must want me to know. He must want this sickening suspicion to wind its way through my memories, tainting every kiss and phone call and âI love youâ we shared. He must want to hurt me.
I hate him. Iâm furious. Itâs a mistake. There must be some mistake.Â
Siggy lifts up her head and looks at me, her eyes filled with drunken tears. Mascara clumps her lashes and trails of black leak from the corners of her eyes.
âYou two seemed so perfect together,â Siggy says. Then she leans back and shouts, âGuys suck!â
âAmen, sister!â someone yells in reply. Laughter, a few whoops and hisses.
I gulp my drink. Despite myself, Iâm thinking about the first time Hunter and I slept together, squeezing ourselves into the backseat of his momâs car. His palms sweaty on my thighs. Formal dress hiked up around my ribcage. He groaned my name, then collapsed on top of me and kissed my hair.
I want to smash something. I want to get drunk. I want to get drunk and then smash Hunter in the face with my purse, which would likely deliver a pretty solid blow because Iâm not only carrying my cell phone and wallet, but also CĂ©lineâs cell phone and wallet. CĂ©line hates carrying a purse, so when we go out together, I take care of CĂ©lineâs stuff. Because weâre best friends, and thatâs what best friends do for each other.
I scan the pool deck. Where is CĂ©line? Does she know about Hunter and some other girl? People are congregating around a new case of beerâmaybe CĂ©line is over there? I step forward, then stop. Hunter is no longer leaning against the palm tree across the pool. What if he is getting another beer? The last thing I want right now is to bump into Hunter Murray.
I am thinking all of this, feeling Mark Sampsonâs eyes on me from a few feet away and Hunterâs eyes not on me from wherever he is at this damn party, downing the last of my rum-and-Coke as I half listen to Siggy speculate about Elliot Escovalâs relationship status, the stereo blasting Justin Timberlake andâOh! my heart leaps with reliefâthere is CĂ©line, grinding with Matt on the makeshift dance floorâthinking all of this, my heart pounding dizzily with anger and alcohol, I say to no one and to everyone, âLetâs go skinny-dipping!â and peel off my T-shirt in one fluid motion and leap into the pool, as if I am born to play this role, as if everything is predestined. It feels fated, this moment.
Because the reality is, I hate pools and I hate swimming and I hate my bony hips and A-cup boobs.
Before this moment, Iâve never skinny-dipped in my life.Â
Other people whip off their clothes and race onto the pool deck with whoops and shouts, jumping in and pushing each other in. I eggbeater in the deep end, the water not as warm as I expected it to be. Goosebumps fan out over my breasts and stomach. A group of boys splash each other and water gets into my eyes. There is shouting, and laughter, and then everything narrows, a camera lens focusing, zooming in. A beat, two beats, of silence.
Screams and panic erupt from the shallow end.
A body, floating there.
Hunterâs red hair.
In that moment, my life splits: there is Before, and there is After.
4 1/2 stars
Initially, Before & After You & Me reminded me of a much-loved book from years ago, The Dive from Clausenâs Pier by Ann Packer in which a young womanâs high school sweetheart is left paralyzed from diving off a pier into shallow water. While the circumstances are similar, Dallas Woodburnâs involves a younger woman, a junior in high school, who is discovering herself and her dreams in art when the accident occurs. Emma had broken up with Hunter earlier, realizing that being away at a prestigious arts boarding school had changed her and their relationship. Of course, she blames herself for causing the accident by breaking up with him, not watching how much he drank at the party where the accident happened, by changing. Back at school, she has a breakthrough, in private. Her safe artwork is on show, but her hidden artwork embodies her passion and how haunted she is by circumstances as she paints aspects of Hunterâs no longer useable legs. But does she have a right to create art from tragedy? This is a question she struggles to deal with as well as her overwhelming feelings of guilt in Dallas Woodburnâs excellent Before & After You & Me.
Before & After You & Me has believable characters in a believable situation. That said, I did think that Emmaâs ex-, Hunter, didnât seem as angsty as he could have been regarding his injury. He was dealing with it in a more mature way than I would have thought a teenager who had his life before him as well as an athletic career would have, especially so soon after the accident.
Woodburnâs structuring of the novelâstarting at a midpoint and then having chapters that deal with current Emma while the alternating chapters work back in time from the accident to Emma and Hunterâs first meetingâwas initially off-putting to me. However, the more I read, the more I appreciated what she was doing. But the going back in time also left me with mixed feelings regarding Emma and Hunterâs relationships and itâs meaning to the novel, and I wondered if raising mixed feelings was intended. Or if mixed feelings was just my reaction.
Writing, characterization, plot, and budding romance were all well done as well as the theme of friendships and communication.
Recommended for any reader who enjoys well-written YA.
Many thanks to Reedsy Discovery for a copy of the novel.