Everything, Everything

Imagine yourself standing in front of a window, gazing intently at the outside world. You see the azure sky, the freshly-mowed green grass, and a crimson bicycle soaring past. The vibrant colors outside stand in stark contrast to your white, pristine room. You wonder what it feels like to let the golden sunlight kiss your skin. You yearn to allow the gentle summer breeze ruffle your hair. Your palms are flattened against the windowpane and your fingertips have turned white from the pressure. You want to explore the world outside so desperately your heart aches, but you can’t, because one step outside and you will inevitably spontaneously combust. This isn’t a horrific nightmare. For Madeline Whittier, this is just another day in life.

Diagnosed with a form of Severe Combined Immunodeficiency, Madeline is confined to her immaculate, air-tight house. For eighteen years, Madeline’s life has been a palindrome—the exact same whether read forwards or backwards. Every today is the same as yesterday, and every tomorrow will be the same as today. Life is an unending sequence, until Olly, the boy from next door, is thrown into the equation. They fall hopelessly in love through emails, instant messages, and secret rendezvous that her nurse, Carla, sets up. Everything comes to an abrupt halt when Madeline’s mother finds out. She strips away Madeline’s internet privileges, fires Carla, and forbids Madeline from seeing Olly.

Painstakingly hard as she tries, Madeline can’t settle back into her old life. Neither can she reverse time and go back to when she didn’t know Olly or hadn’t unearthed this distinct world full of new meanings. The new Madeline realizes that the incarcerated life she had been leading wasn’t really living. Therefore, she risks both her life and her mother’s wrath and jets away to Hawaii with Olly, where they have a perfect day in each other’s company before Madeline falls mortally ill.

Nearing the end of the novel, when everything falls apart and we can’t help but sink into a pool of despair and misery along with the characters, a spectacular plot twist is divulged. As my trembling fingers turned the pages, I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. Madeline Whittier doesn’t have Severe Combined Immunodeficiency and never did. Traumatized by the car accident that took away the lives of her loving husband and adoring son, Madeline’s mother couldn’t bear the thought of losing her daughter too, so she kept her tucked away inside the safe walls of her house. What Madeline underwent in Hawaii was an episode of myocarditis triggered by a viral infection.

Madeline has taught me an abundance of things. She taught me that we shouldn’t be afraid to take a risk just because we’re intimidated by the potential consequences. She taught me that stepping out of our comfort zones can lead to extraordinary things. She taught me that love can be unconditional and unwavering. She taught me that love is everything. She taught me that the thing that stops us the most is fear—fear of pain, fear of failure, and fear of rejection. The fear of being hurt prevents us from doing anything at all and disintegrates us from within. Being alive means taking risks, wearing your heart on your sleeve, and doing things that scare you. Being alive means living your life beyond that fear.