Far From a Winter Wonderland

After the fallout between Noel and Fall, Julius is concerned that Fall did not meet him and asks Noel if he has seen her, Noel says that he has not seen her and proceeds to avoid him. After fall denied Noel, he was so angry that he took Fall's crutches and threw them in the lake, leaving her alone, injured, in the snow, far from the rest of the school. Fall did not go back to her room and missed all the rest of the classes for that week. Julius and Fall's best friend begin to worry about her and call her home but there is no answer, and go to her house only to find all the lights off and the doors locked. Not even the school knows what to do about the missing Fall, since they cannot reach her mother, and everyone agrees since Christmas break is only 2 weeks away it would be an odd time to go for a vacation. While everyone is worried about Fall, Noel continues to avoid everyone and passes his time by getting drunk.

Once again as the winter weather enters the story we see another dramatic change to Noel. The first change we saw during the winter was Noel's metaphoric death of him becoming a stronger more confident person, proof of this is the dramatic physical change he underwent by working out and also mental change, after having his first true sexual encounter in Australia. The change that we see this winter, within Noel, is the metaphoric death of his compassion for Fall. Noel has always spoken highly of Fall and has been obsessed with knowing every detail of her, but after having her deny him and him becoming violent towards her, he refuses to think, or look for her, and chooses to get drunk instead. Now readers are seeing a completely new, savage version of Noel, if he regrets what he did he does not admit it to himself, and if he is concerned about Fall and what has happened to her he does not seem to show it. Noel has become completely selfish and has no morality for what he has done. Julius on the other hand has done nothing but worry about Fall, he has done everything he can from trying to search the school, drive to her home, and has asked everyone if they have seen her. This also ties into the perdition made by Chuck in Chapter 2 when he says that there is something about Noel that he just does not trust, "There's something I don't trust. You had to see it J" (McAdam 113). Chuck tried to tell Julius about his suspicion but Julius would not listen, maybe if he had Fall would not be missing.

With the last scene involving Fall being her stuck in a secluded forest, injured and alone, far from any of the campus buildings, I can only predict that something grim has happened to her. My reasoning for this assumption is that Fall cares for Julius and her best friend Sarah, so for her to leave without saying goodbye does not fit the persona the author has depicted throughout the story. Also Fall was always chiding Julius for skipping classes and was a very intelligent and diligent student, and so it is unusual for her to not attend class.