Stolen

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses suicide and kidnapping.

“You saw me before I saw you.”

This line opens the novel and effectively explains the narrator’s point of view. She will be speaking in the second person to Ty with a sense of intimacy and immediacy. She is also referring back to the story, with more knowledge than she had at the beginning. This line also immediately introduces the power dynamic between her and Ty, where he watches her and asserts control over her.

“Sure, I shrugged, breathless.”

This line has a different meaning to Gemma than it does to Ty. She flippantly and flirtatiously tells him that she would like to go to Australia. He considers this a kind of consent to her eventual kidnapping. This line foreshadows how Ty will continually find ways to make Gemma complicit in her own captivity.

“I held the glass above my left wrist, wondering if I could do it, then brought it down slowly.

This passage comes from the moment Gemma considers and then attempts to die by suicide after waking up in captivity. She frames this attempt as a kind of bravery and strength, knowing it will be difficult and painful but also knowing that at this moment, suicide seems to offer her only chance at escape.