The Rest of Us Just Live Here

Jared is Mikey’s closest and oldest friend and, in many ways, serves as a foil for Mikey’s development. Mikey comes into his heterosexuality after sexually experimenting with Jared and discovering that he’s not attracted to men. While Mikey is highly expressive in describing his desire—and in revealing this desire, even when he doesn’t want to—Jared is deeply secretive about his sexuality and how he expresses it. His desire to keep his relationship with Nathan completely private serves, in large part, as the narrative conflict that Mikey wrestles with as Mikey tries to make sense of Nathan’s (presumed) relationship with Henna.

Jared’s choice to reject his potential “destiny” as an indie kid comes from Jared’s fierce desire for self-determination. Jared figures out what he wants to pursue in life in the moment before he confesses his relationship with Nathan to Mikey: He fails to heal a wounded mountain lion, and this failure helps him realize that he wants to have more complete healing powers, even if they come at a cost. Jared’s ability to see clearly to the heart of his desires, and to make difficult choices for himself about how he will pursue these desires, allows Jared to make astute observations about the lives of the people around him. When his friends pose questions, such as the question at the end of the narrative about what it “means” for their school to burn down, Jared offers complex, well-considered responses to these queries that often push his friends to reconsider the premise of their questions. Jared’s perceptiveness speaks to a thoughtfulness that marks his interactions with all of his friends—but especially Mikey, who often depends on Jared for emotional support.

Mel, Mikey’s older sister, deals with many of the same stressors that Mikey does: She’s deeply critical of her mother and her mother’s political ambitions; she’s coping with an eating disorder exacerbated by stress; and she’s worried about successfully graduating on time. Mel, a year older than Mikey but graduating in his class, spent an extra year in high school due to a heart attack she suffered as a result of untreated anorexia. She was medically dead for a few minutes, and this experience of “losing” Mel was formative for Mikey, who is deeply protective of his sister.

Mel, like Mikey, has a personality full of contradictions. She is, by Mikey’s assessment, “that combination of total self-belief and utter self-doubt” (82). Mel makes self-assured strides in areas of her life that Mikey struggles with; for instance, she is quick to make a connection with Steve and to build a healthy, caring relationship with him. Mel is also able to self-regulate her anorexia as it returns: She knows that she can depend on Mikey for support, and she turns to him when she feels that she will stop eating unless she tells someone about it. By contrast, Mel is highly insecure about her academic performance and often asks for Mikey’s support when she doesn’t fully need it. Of the four main characters, Mel is the most static. These character traits remain consistent for her throughout the novel and, though she achieves her goal of surviving high school, she is not as transformed by the experience as her friends and brother.

Henna, Mikey and Mel’s close friend and Mikey’s crush, deals with many of the same pressures as the other teens in the novel. Her parents want to take her on a mission to an embattled African country and she doesn’t want to go; she’s unsure of her feelings for Mikey (and a few of the other boys in her life); and she’s coping with the loss of her older brother, Teemu. Henna experiences a clarifying moment after the car crash and, in the chapters following this transformative experience, she becomes something of a foil for Mikey. As noted in the Chapter Analyses for Chapters 3 and 4, Henna externalizes her inner turmoil, while Mikey internalizes it. She’s quick to name a problem even when the act of naming might cause conflict. When, for instance, she tells Mikey that “‘For someone I’ve never dated […] you feel entitled to way too much jealousy” (252), she avoids a potential conflict with Mikey by naming the problem head-on. This no-nonsense approach to naming problems is initially difficult for Mikey, but it eventually helps him cope with his own internal struggles.

Henna’s approach to navigating love, friendship, and desire is also wildly different from Mikey’s, and at times is a cause of strife between them. After the car accident, Henna decides that she wants to explore all of the romantic/sexual options that are of interest to her. She’s very open with Mikey about her feelings for him but is also open about her attraction to Nathan and her desire to connect with her ex-boyfriend. Henna’s radically open approach to exploring sex and desire models a different means of Coping with an Uncertain Future. Henna’s arc through the novel demonstrates that it’s possible to handle the anxiety that comes of not knowing how the future will turn out by wholeheartedly exploring all of the options available. Her sexual exploration with Mikey is revelatory for both: They can both finally be free of the possibility of mutual desire in discovering that they are better as friends.