Under the sun (Metaphor)
“There were so many things” that kept reminding Evie of that fateful summer and that horrible night that changed her life once and forever. The house she lived in was situated on the hills that looked so similar to the ones that the ranch was located on. Those “grassy hills turning blond in June” could “crack open something in” her chest, her “palms going suddenly slick with adrenaline.” The sun that bleached the surrounding seemed to mock her and her numerous fears.
Despair (Metaphor and Simile)
The disastrous first meeting with Frank unnerved Evie. She couldn’t understand why her own mother seemed to prefer him over her. It was so unfair that she wanted to cry. “The night boiled inside her,” for she was angry, desperate and confused. Her mother thought that life was “as easy as picking gold from the ground,” but Evie knew that it was a blatant lie, and that it was far more difficult.
The last moment (Metaphor)
Scotty knew what exactly was going to happen. He saw his fate in the cold eyes of the intruders. They didn’t come to steal; they came to kill. As soon as he saw “the knife smiling up from Guy’s hand,” its cold blade shiny, sharp, flawless could he understood that it could mean only one thing. Those intruders armed with knives were insane, there was no need to beg for mercy.
Emotionless (Simile)
Evie’s fears proved to be not sensible. The intruders who interrupted her sleep were just a pair of almost harmless teenagers. Julian, a son of her old friend, and his little girlfriend whose face was “as blank as a spoon” were not there to kill her. Julian seemed to be rather surprised to find anyone in there while Julia’s face was completely emotionless. However, the whole situation was rather awkward.
A friend (Simile)
Before Evie met Suzanne, Russell and others, she had had a friend. Her name was Connie. They were not that close really, it seemed that they talked to each other because they didn’t have other friends. Connie always waited for Evie outside classrooms “as patient as a cow.”
