Visibles Response #2

            In The Visibles, heartbreak strikes Summer Davis' family when her mother leaves her family. Her dad soon becomes very depressed and downcast, sitting on the couch, in his listless, inactive state and then spending time at a hospital and a psychiatric clinic. In the beginning, Summer would go to his appointments and talk to him all the time. She even got a scholarship to a really good college for "special students" and declined it. At first, she saw the best in her situation an. even tried to deny herself to the things happening in her life. But soon, she changes. No longer does the once trying, hopeful girl try and hope. Summer changes, because she starts to settle for less. She also starts to see less in herself and other people. 

               Summer soon moves in with her great-aunt Stella, who has just gotten cancer. This is an important factor, considering she went to the airport to fly across the world to the school, listened to the calls for her flight and simply-didn't go. While she could be at an amazing school developing herself even further in genetics, she is with Stella in a messy, dirty house eating toast, reading encyclopedias and "trying to live as if it were 1965". For now, Summer has parked herself into a low-standard, unpromising future and she knows it. People around her, on the other hand, have invested in a better future. A distant relative of Stella has changed a lot over a few years. Previously an unrefined, rude teenager, Samantha becomes a real-estate agent, a bright, glowing and brisk young women. Summer could've been one of those people, but she just doesn't have the confidence that it takes.

                Somewhere along the way, Summer starts seeing less in herself and in other people than she had before. Philip, a boy who lived near her great-aunt the first time Summer visited her and who she had briefly been in love with, emails Samantha to tell her that he is in New York. He also asks about how Summer is. Immediately, without thinking about the kiss she and Philip shared or the talks they had, Summer begins to think things like "Philip probably had roommates, a girlfriend...He asked Samantha about me out of politeness, nothing more." When Samantha first tells her about Philip, she thinks "Perhaps Philip went to New York because I lived there... But I punished that thought quickly away, mortified that I'd even considered it." Summer has become this person, who doesn't have enough faith in herself enough to believe that anybody cares about her at all.