Part of Your World

“I stopped what I was doing. ‘Okay. We need to clear something up,’ I said, looking her in the eye. ‘When you come down—no matter what you come down for—I’m going to make a big deal over it. Because it is a big deal. You’re driving four hours, round-trip, to be here. That’s not nothing.’”

Daniel tells this to Alexis when she complains about him putting too much effort into one of their dates after they have agreed that their relationship cannot be serious. Alexis’s complaint and Daniel’s response to it highlight how differently they view relationships, as Daniel wants to get the most out of the relationship even knowing it will end soon, while Alexis only focuses on what they should do in their time together. This exchange foreshadows the ways in which both characters will treat their relationship throughout the novel.

“It was like he liked me on eggshells. Like as long as I was running after him, begging him to tell me what was wrong, what I could do better, he was happy.”

Alexis thinks this about Neil as she is opening up to Jessica about her abuse. It shows how much control Neil had over Alexis during their relationship and how he framed problems so that she always thought they were her fault. Her tone in this quote shows that Alexis is still coming to terms with this months after the end of their relationship, developing the theme of Cycles of Abuse.

“I should have known, right?’ I whispered. ‘I know what abuse looks like. But I just thought it was different, you know? Someone hitting you, calling you names, yelling. I didn’t know it was like this.”

As an ER doctor, Alexis has seen physical proof of abuse on many occasions, yet due to the taboo nature of emotional abuse and the general tendency of society to not believe women’s personal experiences, Alexis did not recognize her own abuse immediately. This quote shows that Alexis has now gained that insight but also emphasizes how much Neil’s abuse is still making her doubt herself, which manifests as her blaming herself for not recognizing it and stopping it.

“Grace costs you nothing. My grandma used to say it. She especially liked to say it to herself when I was being a little shit.”

Daniel says this to Alexis during her stay at the Grant House, and the phrase “grace costs you nothing” is then repeated by both characters in situations that require generosity, compassion, or humility. Grace and Privilege is one of the novel’s major themes, helping to reveal Alexis and Daniel’s different experiences and opportunities. This quote triggers Alexis to recognize her and her friends’ privilege and how truly different her world is from Daniel’s.

“I realized that I would try things with him that I hadn’t tried with anyone. He made me feel uninhibited like that—and safe. I think the safe thing was the biggest part of it, actually.”

This thought of Alexis’s comes when she is staying at the Grant House with her friends. Despite hiding the fact that she knows Daniel, she is understanding the value of being liked for herself. Although she feels safe around him, she is also trying to keep Daniel safe from her friends’ scrutiny, as she knows they would make a joke of him. This excerpt also continues to underscore the differences between Daniel and Neil, as the latter preferred that Alexis feel unsafe.

“The way he said it made me instantly feel bad. Like I’d defiled him. Made him lower his standards for intimacy. I mean, he hadn’t asked me my last name. But then he probably thought I wouldn’t have told him. And honestly? I probably wouldn’t have. I’d sort of had one foot out the door since the start of all this. But I didn’t really have one foot out the door now.”

Alexis thinks this after Daniel tells her he has never been romantically involved with someone whose last name he did not know. It shows that Daniel’s enthusiasm about the relationship makes Alexis feel like she is using him despite their agreed-upon terms for the relationship. This marks a crucial turning point, as it is when Alexis finally begins to accept that she has feelings for Daniel and wants their relationship to be something more.

“Daniel was a vacation for me, I realized—like a break from my own brain or the reality of my current crappy situation. And we had that easy flowing conversation that you so rarely find with someone. I had it with Derek and Bri, but I’d never had it with Neil. With Neil, I always felt like I needed to say something important or smart for it to be worth bringing up. We spent a lot of quiet meals together.”

Alexis compares Daniel to a vacation in that she feels relaxed and able to avoid her problems when with him. The comparison is overtly flattering, but as she later realizes, her attitude implies that Daniel is only a temporary escape from her real world. Alexis doesn’t allow Daniel into her world until the very end of the novel, but Jimenez shows the reader much sooner that Alexis is most able to be her true self when she is with Daniel.

“I started thinking about when I would come again, and I realized I was already canceling plans with other people in my head to make time to be here. I’d gone from being positive I was never going to see him again, to seeing him being the only thing I felt like doing. Somewhere deep in the back of my brain, a warning signal flashed.”

This excerpt reminds the reader of the original terms of Alexis and Daniel’s relationship and flags how far they are moving away from them. While Alexis has trouble making Daniel a priority in the bigger picture of her life, this quote shows that she naturally does so when not under the pressure of her parents’ expectations.

“I hated that I’d come here with them. I felt ashamed by association. Had they always been like this? Or was I just now starting to find it unacceptable? Had I been like this once? And the answer to that made me feel ashamed too.”

Only once Alexis sees her friend leaving the Grant House a one-star review does she begin to question her own privilege and how she has treated others because of it. Jessica and Gabby are part of the world Alexis is trying to keep hidden from Daniel, but the more she spends time with them, the more she realizes she wants to keep her world hidden from Daniel because it is toxic and embarrassing.

“I didn’t like how easy it was for someone like Gabby, in her position of privilege, to punch down. At all. It was such an unfair power dynamic. She was like a kid wielding her one-star reviews like a toy, for fun. Only it wasn’t a game. It was someone’s livelihood. And here was Daniel, doing what he felt was the right thing, refunding the whole weekend. He was in the worst position to be generous, yet he was. And she was in the best position to show grace, and she didn’t. And doing it would have cost her nothing.”

This quote repeats Daniel’s earlier phrase “grace costs you nothing” and shows how much Alexis has taken its meaning to heart. It also draws attention to the power dynamics that are at play throughout the novel and illustrates how privileged the people in Alexis’s circle really are compared to Daniel. This is an important turning point in Part of Your World and Alexis’s character development, as she starts to see the ways in which she can be a better person.

“She never made me feel like I wasn’t good enough for her, but she didn’t have to. It was obvious. I’d accepted this with a resigned understanding of my position and decided that I wasn’t going to dwell on it, especially because there was nothing I could do to change the situation. I couldn’t snap my fingers and be a damn surgeon. I couldn’t be anything other than what I was.”

Daniel makes several comments like this throughout the novel, most of which show him becoming increasingly insecure about his worth. Daniel often thinks about the differences between him and Alexis, but it is Alexis who insists that these differences prevent them from being together. Throughout most of the novel, Daniel seems to have a more emotionally mature view of their relationship, yet it is clear from quotes like this that he is much less secure about himself as an individual than he seems outwardly.

“I used to be so worn down from his mood swings and so desperate for any bit of kindness from him that I’d just give in. I’d just let it go, let him get away with it. I’d thank him for the flowers or act excited about the expensive vacation he’d booked instead of actually saying he was sorry. I’d eat the quiche. Fuck the quiche.”

Alexis thinks this after Neil has made her favorite quiche to try to win her favor after forcibly moving back into their house. This excerpt shows how much Alexis has grown since her relationship with Neil ended, explicitly contrasting her prior acquiescence with how she now feels about his efforts to charm her. It also further breaks down Neil’s manipulation tactics; he never truly accepted responsibility for his actions, as he had groomed Alexis not to expect even an acknowledgement, let alone an apology.

“Something in me had shifted in the last few weeks. It was like the more distance I got from this relationship, the stronger I became, and standing up to him was getting easier and easier. I was perfectly willing to put up with his presence and hold my ground in exchange for the chance to finally show him I could.”

This quote about Alexis’s shifting relationship with Neil puts her goals into perspective by emphasizing that she wants to prove she can stand up for herself. It also foreshadows Alexis’s growth within her other abusive relationship, illuminating what she will have to do in order to break the hold her parents have on her.

“In that moment I wished it was the truth—that Neil was Dad’s son and I was just Neil’s ex-girlfriend, some random, unimportant woman who could break up with him and go on with her life. It would have been so easy for the universe to arrange it that way. But the universe doesn’t care.”

Alexis thinks this after she learns that her parents have invited Neil to golf with them. In this quote, she is beginning to recognize what separates her from the other Montgomerys, such as their obsession with status and prestige, which Neil shares. The final two sentences allude to the magical realism present throughout the novel, playing with ideas of whether the universe does in fact care.

“Daniel transported me. Everything about being here and being with him was a break from reality. He was closing open tabs on a laptop in my brain one at a time until he was the only thing on the screen. I felt Neil, my dad, and Royaume Northwestern fade into oblivion at the edges of my mind, and then disappear with a blip.”

Like Quote 8, this quote shows the conflict in Alexis’s mind about Daniel. Where Daniel treats Alexis as an actual girlfriend he is proud to be seen with, Alexis frequently compares Daniel to objects or experiences that make her forget about her real life; the difference shows that she thinks of their relationship as less significant. However, it also shows that Daniel eases her anxiety and that she focuses on him when she’s with him.

“Last week a man came in with a simple perforated eardrum, and I saw him in the waiting room and wrote him a prescription without checking him in so he wouldn’t be billed for an ER trip. When I could, I coded procedures so they fell under a wellness visit or I sent a patient to their primary care physician where it would be cheaper instead of giving them a treatment that could wait. But I was starting to feel like it wasn’t enough. I was starting to feel like I could be doing more. And now I was in a position to. There were definitely perks to being a Montgomery. Maybe I should start to use them.”

This quote shows that although Alexis is aware of the disparities in healthcare and works against them when she can, she doesn’t realize their full extent until she sees how much they affect the citizens of Wakan. It also highlights how she prioritizes helping those in need, not giving favors to those with wealth and prestige as other hospital board members and her parents do. Her determination to use her status as a Montgomery also illustrates one way in which Alexis has begun to recognize her privilege and use it to help those without it.

“I swallowed the lump in my throat. She wasn’t asking me to do this for Dad. She was asking for herself. Because Dad would be unbearable if I didn’t. He probably already was. I couldn’t even respond. There was no point. She was right. My father was my father.”

Alexis thinks this during a conversation with her mother in which the latter implores Alexis to go to couple’s counseling with Neil. It is during this conversation that Alexis begins to recognize the abusive behaviors her father uses against her mother and realizes that she and her mother might be in similar situations. From her experience with Neil, Alexis knows that her mother will be neither able nor willing to change her father’s behavior and that she just wants to make things as bearable as possible. Her mother’s inability to see the harm in couple’s counseling shows that she does not see the abuse in her own marriage.

“He had to be here. And he had to be in that house. I knew in my soul that’s part of what gave him strength to do what he had to do. A Montgomery working in any other hospital would still be a Montgomery, but it weakened us, made our influence thinner. I had to be at Royaume, and he had to be within Grant House.”

In this quote, Alexis both compares and contrasts the Montgomery and Grant family legacies. She knows both she and Daniel are the last members of their families who can continue the legacies tied to the iconic structures of Royaume and the Grant House, respectively. However, despite mentioning that she has to be at Royaume, she also admits that “[a] Montgomery working in any other hospital would still be a Montgomery”; Daniel could not do the same with his bed-and-breakfast, thus making his role in continuing his family’s legacy even more crucial.

“‘Liz, I want to tell you something. Something I wish people would have told me once.’ She looked over at me, waiting. I held her eyes. ‘I believe you. I can handle anything you need to tell me. You don’t need to protect me from the truth and I’m here to help you in any way I can. It’s not your fault. And you don’t deserve it.’ I saw the words crash over her. Her chin quivered. There was so much power in those words, I realized. I wondered how much sooner I would have found the strength to leave if someone had been saying those things to me when I needed to hear it—and I’d believed them.”

Alexis’s declaration to Liz highlights the importance of having faith and believing in the stories of abuse that others have experienced. Alexis knows personally that society is often reluctant to believe women’s accusations of abuse, particularly against seemingly reputable men, and particularly when the abuse is emotional. Yet Alexis recognizes the power in her words and sees how Liz reacts to them, showing just how much they can make a difference.

“Daniel gave me everything he knew. He kept nothing for himself, the way Neil always did. Daniel gave his knowledge freely and happily, even though it lessened any advantage he might have had over me—and in doing it he weakened the last bit of hold Neil had, even if all Daniel did was show me I was capable of anything I needed to do.”

This quote further contrasts Neil and Daniel based on how they have treated Alexis. Although Alexis feels herself becoming more emotionally attached to Daniel at this point in the novel, Daniel is also helping her feel more self-sufficient, something Neil actively worked against. In this way, Alexis’s growth as an individual also aligns with the growth in her relationship with Daniel.

“How do you know? You’ve never even tried to make them work. You won’t let me meet your friends or your family. I can’t know where you live. Give me a chance. Let me try. I can come to you. I can do everything.”

Daniel says this to Alexis after he meets her at the hospital and is snubbed by her friends and family. Although Daniel never complains about Alexis’s behavior throughout the novel, here he shows her that he has noticed the differences between how he treats her and how she treats him. While he has made an effort to incorporate her into his life, she has barely allowed him glimpses of her world.

“‘I love Daniel more than I’ve ever loved anyone, but it doesn’t make the rest of it disappear.’

‘It’s not supposed to make it disappear. It just prioritizes things.’”

This exchange between Alexis and Bri after the breakup with Daniel is what finally lets Alexis put her relationship into perspective. Bri observes that love does not have to be everything but can still fit into Alexis’s life as a priority. This conversation is what leads Alexis to reconsider her priorities and begin putting her own happiness first.

“It was funny how these casual, careless jabs were so obvious to me now. I was so used to them growing up, I didn’t even notice them. They were the building blocks of everything I’d accepted from Neil. Instead of giving me words of encouragement before I stood in front of five hundred people, Dad chose to remind me just how little confidence he had in me. He wanted me to know that he assumed I didn’t understand the significance of this gala and hadn’t bothered to get ready. But mostly it annoyed me because it was a slight to Mom.”

Alexis thinks this after her father asks her if she is actually prepared for her speech at the gala, something he knows her mother has been helping her with for weeks. This quote shows that Alexis is finally starting to see the patterns of abuse she has dealt with throughout her life; as with Neil, she can overcome those patterns by recognizing them for what they are. Though Alexis’s relationship with her mother is complicated by the fact that the latter enables her father’s emotional abuse, this passage also shows Alexis’s solidarity with her as someone who also has to deal with her father’s cruelty.