Lindsey Lee Wells

Character Analysis

At first Colin writes Lindsey Lee Wells off as a girl who reads Celebrity Living—a.k.a. a nitwit—but she's much more than a girl with a stellar smile and metallic fingernails. Lindsey is a lot of things, including:

• A paramedic in training 
• A southern belle with the oldsters
• A bubbly ditz with TOC
• A deep-thinking nerd with Hassan and Colin

So will the real Lindsey please stand up? Well, the truth is, we're not exactly sure who that is. Listen to Lindsey talk about it:

I'm never myself. [...] I'm nothing. The thing about chameleoning your way through life is that it gets to where nothing is real. (14.55)

She's faked it so much that she's one big phony most of the time, which is pretty relatable. Aren't you different around different people? After wearing so many masks, though, it can be hard to remember who you really are, deep down inside. This is totally how Lindsey feels.

In fact, one of the things that attracts her to Colin is that he's just himself… even if that self is an annoying know-it-all.

Just Be One of Yourselves

Eventually, Lindsey learns to just be herself too—whoever that is. She can have deep thoughts one minute, and be goofy the next, which is totally cool as long as she gets to decide who it is she wants to be. One of the most telling moments about Lindsey's story in the novel is when she's in the cave with Colin.

Lindsey's cave is a super private place for her that she's never let anyone see before, so it doesn't take a child prodigy to figure out that it's a big deal for her to take Colin there. And then once they're in the cave, Lindsey and Colin have deep personal conversations and share secrets, taking the intimacy to a whole new level.

On top of that, there are chunks of time where no one says anything at all. You might have noticed a couple places where nothing is said but "…" What's the deal? Well, there's a comfortable silence between them, and there's no description in these scenes, aside from the words they say to each other. It's kind of a rare thing to find in a book, and it clues us in to the fact that Colin and Lindsey and comfortable enough to just hang with one another, without words.