Chapter 18

Torey notices that things have changed with Tomaso. Although he still frequently becomes angry, there are no more violent outbursts and there seems to be an understanding between him and Torey. I really liked what she said about this milestone, which was, "We both knew now how bad things could get between us and not damage the relationship. The test by fire had come and we had survived it." (pg. 180). I really liked this quote because it shows how Tomaso thought of relationships in general, and that if one bad thing happened the relationships would be over. This also shows how his past relationships have gone, which is why he is so distrusting towards everyone he meets.

The next part of the chapter talks about Claudia, and how Torey is still very concerned about her. She feels that Claudia is most likely dealing with depression, and wants to find some kind of support for her. When she calls Claudia's mother, she simply laughs and tells Torey that it is just an adolescent phase. When Torey tries to find a support group for Claudia, she cannot find anyone willing to help. She almost finds a group held at a high school for pregnant girls to talk to each other, but they tell Torey that Claudia is too young for such mature subjects. I found this somewhat funny because if Claudia is already pregnant, she clearly knows about some of the subjects being talked about already. A quote I found interesting from this part of the chapter came from Torey discussing the issue with the school nurse:

"The problem, she feels, is in Claudia's age, not her pregnancy. No one wants to acknowledge that a young child can and will get pregnant. As in such areas as physical or sexual abuse of children, the issue is too shocking to allow most people to accept it as a problem to be worked on. Maybe if they ignore it, it will go away." (pg. 186).

It is sad to hear that at this time in our country people just wanted to ignore such a serious issue, where girls who are already in a tough situation become ignored and have no support. Although I feel that pregnancies for VERY young girls is still pretty taboo, I think people are better about getting girls educated on what they need to do if they get pregnant, and there are a lot more preventative measures being taken with sex education in schools, so that young girls will actually understand what outcomes are possible. I understand that this is still a touchy subject for a lot of parents, but it is my hope that more education will help lower rates of teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. The situation presented in the book is a prime example of why we cannot be ignoring these children in need.