Crank Chapters 21-30 Summary

Chapter 21: The Screaming

The screaming neighbors transport Kristina back to her childhood before the divorce. She remembers huddling under blankets with Leigh listening to their parents fight.
She particularly remembers her mom telling her dad that he didn't deserve his daughters and that he'd be lucky if he saw them ever again after the divorce.
While it sure sounds like her mom had good reason for saying that, Kristina is still angry with her about it—her dad may have issues, but he's the only dad she has.

Kristina admits, however, that her dad did some bad stuff, particularly cheating on her mom and having some serious addiction problems. Still, the pain of being taken away from him feels fresh even eight years later.
Meanwhile, back at home, Kristina's mom has been taking her frustrations over her failing writing career out on her daughter. As a result,
Kristina's quick to blame her for her dad abandoning her. She feels like in spite of everything, it would be easier to forgive her dad than her mother.

While her mom seriously gets on her nerves, Kristina admits that life hasn't been exactly easy for her and is willing to cut her a little slack. Raising two kids on your own (until Scott showed up) isn't easy, after all.
Kristina's brother Jake is Scott's son. Her mom loves him for sure, but doesn't love the fact that having another baby took more of a toll on the body she works to perfect. Meanwhile, Kristina recognizes that her dad has always loved drugs more than his own family.

Given his love of television when she and Leigh were little, Kristina finds it ironic that her dad's been negligent with his cable fees. So to recap, she's stuck in the world's nastiest apartment with nothing to do except listen to neighbors fighting and nothing to watch on TV except fuzzy Friends reruns and Spanish soap operas.
Kristina's understandably bored and decides to go outside, where she notices the hot, shirtless guy flirting with another girl. She stands in the shadows and watches them.

Hot guy and the girl are arguing about whether to engage in sexual relations while simultaneously making out. The girl's mom yells at her to come inside but they continue with their activities.
Finally Mom can't be ignored anymore so the girl goes inside, promising him they'll meet up later.

The girl goes inside, and Kristina ponders her confusing emotions about the hot guy.
On one hand, he's really sexy. But on the other, she's totally clueless about guys and doesn't want a boyfriend. She doesn't even really like talking to strangers, especially strangers who smoke.
Mainly, though, she can see he's attached to the other girl and knows she shouldn't want a relationship with him just based on that.

Kristina makes some kind of noise that gets Mr. Hot's attention. He tells her that he's been "waiting for her." What? It sure didn't look like it a few minutes ago…
Moving closer to her, he tells Kristina that he knows what she's thinking. She's thinking that he's a bad boy and not good enough for her (which is totally true). Then he actually touches her face and tells her she's wrong. Whoa.

Kristina shakes her head, but the guy pressures her to tell him why she's staring at him. Kristina describes it to us as feeling like there's another person inside her who can't stop looking at him, and she can feel that person coming to life.
The guy tells her she's kind of a snob, but cute—we can't tell whether that's meant to be a compliment or not—and then he asks for her name.
She tells him her name is Bree. Ah…

Whoa, wait a minute. Who's Bree and why did Kristina just pull that name out of nowhere? Hot guy says it's pretty and Kristina says she can feel confidence rising in "our brain." Is she Gollum now or something?
Kristina/Bree is confused, but she stays cool and asks for his name. He says people call him Buddy, but it says Adam on his birth certificate.
Adam tells Kristina that he thinks she's kind of weird, but that he wants to get to know her. Meanwhile, Kristina is wondering who the heck Bree is and whether or not she's going to stick around.

Kristina realizes that in spite of everything she was just thinking, she actually does want to get to know Adam. She thinks about how Bree would probably just grab him and kiss him, but Kristina doesn't have that confidence.
Adam's girlfriend calls for him. Adam asks Kristina how long she'll be in town (it's only a three week visit). He tells her it's not a lot of time, but might be "enough."
Enough for what? This guy might seem nice, but something about him is still a little shady.