The Beginning of Everything

Coyotes appear throughout the narrative and represent the untamed; they conjure feelings of adventure and of impending doom. To the gated community, they symbolize fear—fear that there are things beyond people’s control, that an “interloper” might disrupt their “perfect little planned community” (64). Cassidy is wary of them but sees them as free and wild, the way she likes to portray herself. Ezra accepts them as a part of life and uses the fear of them to insist on driving Cassidy home, benefiting from the coyote’s fearsome reputation. The anticipation of an attack by a coyote intensifies when Ezra describes the “coyote warning” handouts, printed over his photo. The death of Cooper by this untamed force of nature is what finally crumbles the wall between Ezra and Cassidy.

The debate team has different meanings to different students at Eastwood High. To Ezra’s former friends, the debate team is a social group full of unpopular nerds with no hope of joining the popular crowd. It is the refuge of losers who occupy a lower rung on the social ladder—people whose opinions don’t matter and who serve as fodder for ridicule. Before the accident, this is essentially how Ezra perceived the debate team and its leader, his onetime friend Toby, forever marked by tragedy and destined for a sad life. However, after the accident, Ezra comes to see the debate team in a wholly different light. He learns the skills that are required to be a successful debater and admires the knowledge that Cassidy and the others bring to their arguments. Once he joins the debate team, the group represents a world of interesting ideas, wit, and comradery that Ezra did not even know existed while he was hanging out with the popular jocks.

The lunch tables represent the social hierarchy at Eastwood High. The two that figure prominently in the novel are the Tier One table and the table where Toby and other members of the debate team sit. Before his accident, when he was a star tennis player, Ezra sat at the Tier One table and felt he belonged there. He assumed that the social structure was fixed, and that his place was with popular students like Evan and Charlotte. After the accident, Toby welcomes Ezra to his table, representing a shift not only in Ezra’s status but also in his perspective. He wonders how he was able to endure the juvenile, shallow company of his former friends. His movement from one table to another shows that people have a choice in their relationships and in what kind of person they want to be. From Ezra’s perspective after high school, the lunch tables represent a self-imposed limitation he once placed on himself, as well as his freedom to make different, more mature choices.