The Running Dream

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2011

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Part 2, Chapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2, Chapter 7 Summary

After lunch, Fiona helps Jessica organize and prepare for her classes at school. Fiona suggests that Jessica speak to her teachers about an exemption from unnecessary homework assignments. Then they begin to work together on Jessica’s math assignments.

While they work, Jessica catches Fiona daydreaming a few times. She asks Fiona what is going on, but before Fiona can answer, Jessica’s mother interrupts them. Suddenly, Jessica realizes where Fiona’s mind is at: she is planning a party for Jessica’s return to school. Later, after Fiona has left, Jessica’s mother points out how wonderful Fiona is as a friend. Jessica heartily agrees, overwhelmed with gratitude for Fiona’s presence in her life.

Part 2, Chapter 8 Summary

The night,her last before returning to school, Jessica suffers a bout of insomnia. She gets up and reads her history book until she drifts off. When her mother wakes her up in the morning, she tries to find some excuse to stay home. However, Jessica knows that she can’t evade school, not when Fiona has gone to such great lengths to celebrate her return.

At breakfast, Jessica hopes to see her sister, so she can make amends for their previous argument. But Kaylee doesn’t come downstairs right away, and even Jessica’s dad seems out of sorts. He asks if Jessica will see her coach, and Fiona, thinking her father is mad at Coach Kyro, defends him: “Fiona says I might have bled to death is it wasn’t for him” (88). Kaylee comes downstairs, and when she sees Jessica smile, she tells her that’s what she needs to do and “everything will be fine” (89). She then hugs Jessica and apologizes for their disagreement.

Everyone helps pack the wheelchair and Jessica’s school gear into Fiona’s car. Jessica is nervous but trying to stay positive as the girls head to Liberty High.

Part 2, Chapter 9 Summary

Jessica begins to have an anxiety attack as they pull into the parking lot. She worries about getting to class on time, despite Fiona’s assurances that everything will work out.

Fiona gets Jessica settled into the wheelchair, then pushes her toward the school. Jessica’s pant leg, empty from her missing limb, flaps against her leg, causing her to get upset. Fiona helps Jessica settle down as Jessica re-pins her pant leg. She tells Fiona that everything is okay, but in reality, Jessica is “mortified to be [her]” (91).

Part 2, Chapters 7-9 Analysis

Jessica decides she is as ready as she can be to return to school, and Fiona starts to plan a return celebration for her. The next morning, Jessica senses some tension at the breakfast table. Her father asks whether she will see her track coach at school that day, and Jessica wonders aloud why her father dislikes someone who saved her from bleeding out after the accident. This comment on her father’s part shows that it’s not only direct victims of trauma who seek a culprit or scapegoat for the person who is victimized.; often, and it’s those close to the victim, sometimes even more so than the victim themselves.

When Kaylee comes down to the kitchen, she and Jessica hug, and she apologizes for the fight the day before. The fact that the youngest person in the house is able to be the most mature adds some irony to the family dynamic while also showing how much the two sisters care for another.

As Fiona pulls into the school parking lot, Jessica has a panic attack. Her uneasy feelings are amplified when the flap from her right pantleg comes unpinned. Here, readers bear witness to the difficult of readjustment after trauma: Jessica’s school is a place she has been to hundreds of times, yet her anxiety level is off the charts, as though this environment were brand new.