At the beginning of the narrative, Sunny and Dale are both alienated from supportive communities. Dale has distanced himself from his family, and as he falls deeper into the world of drug use and aimlessness, he pushes his family further and further away. Ironically, the people who love him most and who are most willing to help him are the very people he is least willing to approach. His unhappiness shows in the depictions of his near-perpetual scowl and slouching, withdrawn body language. Sunny, by contrast, tries to remain close to her parents and to Dale—but circumstances get in her way when Dale pressures her to lie to her parents on his behalf. This issue places a barrier between them, and because her parents do not talk to her about what Dale is experiencing, she gets the impression that his issues are supposed to be a secret. Meanwhile, Dale becomes more and more distant, and Sunny even feels unable to confide in her close friend, Deb; the narrative implies that Sunny believes Dale’s situation is an embarrassment and that talking about it is disloyal to her family. When Sunny’s parents send her to Florida, this decision confirms her worst suspicions—that she is somehow complicit in Dale’s problems and that she, too, has become a problem for her parents.