Summary

When Patch was ten, he believed that life consisted of layers being torn off of a whole person, but three years later, he has come to believe that layers can be built back on if people love you. He feels stitches around his midsection and wonders if he could be in an ICU. There is someone there with him. In Chapter 40, a girl gives him a pill and warns him not to share his name because there is a man who is always listening to them. She tells him that he has to pray in order to survive. In Chapter 41, the girl sings to Patch and tells him that the whole world is the dark room they are in and that they will carry this room with them even if they are rescued. It will “swallow every good thing” (95).

In Chapter...