All We Have Left

Wendy Mills

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2016

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Download PDF

Chapters 29-32Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 29 Summary: “Alia”

Alia and Travis join the thousands of others attempting to escape down the stairwells, passing individuals succumbing to physical and emotional exhaustion who are being helped by others. No one is positive about the nature of the disaster, although there are mentions of a small plane having hit the tower. One woman succumbs to hysteria and demands that everyone cease attempts at cell phone use, since she fears that they are being used to detonate bombs. Alia once again channels her alter ego, Lia, who prays in the mosque when she is in need of strength. Alia tries to converse with Travis, who tells her that he used to play the saxophone in a local band known as the “Do-Gooders.” He mentions that he has dropped out of college, and that he had wanted to study music so that he could teach it to children, as his grandfather had taught him. Alia tells him of her dream to write comic books, dismissing the idea as a serious possibility. Travis tells her, “[…] you’re too scared to go after something you really want” (214).

The pair stop to help a 22-year-old with a heart condition who can no longer walk, despite her insistence that they leave her behind.

Chapter 30 Summary: “Jesse”

Jesse is happy on her way home from Emi’s house, having just reconciled with her three closest friends after months of estrangement. She happens upon Nick, Dave and Hailey; the other girl immediately says, “There’s our favorite bitch-squealer” (217). Jesse sees Nick looking at her with hatred, and wonders if he had ever cared for her at all. He grabs her arm and tells her that, “[…] you’re nothing, just like us…You’ve become a […] stupid sheep that just wants to follow the herd” (218). Jesse has a visceral response, and retorts that the tagging was wrong, and that they should have stopped one another. In response, Nick shakes her violently until Adam’s voice directs him to release her. Adam steps up to Nick and says, “Stay the hell away from her” (218). It becomes apparent that Nick is a coward, and the trio walks away.

Adam walks Jesse home, and Jesse realizes that he probably would have been capable of defending himself in a fight. He has had to learn to do so because of “[…] so many people like Nick, Dave, and Hailey in the world” (220). Upon her return home, Jesse scans the list on 9/11 victims for hours in search of a young woman with the first name of Alia. By the end of the evening, she realizes that, “Whoever Alia was, she didn’t die in the towers” (220).

Chapter 31 Summary: “Alia”

Travis and Alia continue to help the disabled young woman, Julia, who says that she will rest in the office and then continue on down the stairs. Alia refuses to leave her, but acknowledges to herself that her baser nature is encouraging her to do so. When she realizes that Travis is missing, Alia tries to find him. She witnesses an elevator filled with trapped passengers who are struggling to free themselves from the fiery interior of the elevator shaft. A young man is attempting to open the doors with the leg of a desk chair, and yells to Alia that she should vacate immediately.

Chapter 32 Summary: “Jesse”

Jesse spends more time combing through possessions of both Travis and Hank that were left behind. She notices Travis’s saxophone case and music, and restores them carefully to their former storage spot. Additionally, she finds Travis’s yearbook. To her surprise, Mr. Laramore, her Entrepreneurship teacher, was a member of Travis’s band, “The Do Gooders.”

Shortly afterwards, Jesse is contacted by Anne Jonna, the 9/11 survivor who had promised to help get further information about Travis. She advises Jesse that she has found a young woman named Julia, who thinks that she remembers Travis.

Get access to this full Study Guide and much more!

8,800+ In-Depth Study Guides
4,700+ Quick-Read Plot Summaries
Downloadable PDFs

Jesse accepts an invitation to join a climbing group sent by her instructor, and happens upon Adam in the group. When it is clear that Jesse has no partner, she realizes that Drew, her instructor, is refraining from volunteering as he no longer trusts her; however, Adam asks to climb with Jesse. She advises him that “You don’t have to do this” (229), but Adam responds that he wants to. Jesse leads them to the top of the mountain, and then realizes that Adam has become weak and pale as he attempts to traverse the rock face. He explains that he had been fasting because it was Ramadan, and “[…] we don’t eat or drink between sunup and sundown for a month” (231). Jesse stays next to him for the duration of the climb, pointing out good footholds and handholds.

When they have time to talk at the top of the mountain, Adam asks “So why’d you do it?” (232). Jesse explains the story of her parents, the photo album, and her father’s muted reaction to her son’s death. She says, “I didn’t know who to be mad at, so I just got mad at everybody” (233). They share the feeling that they are very close to God when on the mountain. They agree to start over, and they introduce themselves to one another as if for the first time.

Chapters 29-32 Analysis

Alia’s section of the narrative demonstrates increased maturity and sense of perspective with each new entry. In Chapter 29, she details the physical and emotional suffering of others whom she and Travis encounter on the smoke-filled stairway as they attempt to escape. Paranoia and panic exist in some of the victims; others are quietly heroic in their efforts to help the wounded and extinguish hallway fires in order to allow their colleagues a chance to escape. The young woman comes to the realization that “[…] whatever is wrong, is really, really wrong” (211). Alia’s moral development is illustrated when she and Travis stop their descent in order to assist Julia, who suffers from a heart condition and is gasping for air. Channeling her fictional heroine, Lia, Alia notes that “Lia wouldn’t leave her, and I won’t either” (215). The pair bring Julia to a deserted office to rest; suddenly, Alia realizes that Travis has disappeared. In her effort to locate him, she comes across an elevator crowded with burned victims who are trapped inside, while office workers make heroic efforts to rescue them. She hears the trapped occupants calling for help, “[…] and see the fingers” (223); her reaction is to feel sick. One of the rescuers urges Alia to leave immediately, stating that “Two have already hit—do you think there can’t be a third?”(224).

Years later, Jesse is undergoing a similar capacity for introspection and a sense of enhanced moral development. Buoyed by the re-introduction of her three best friends in her life, she literally comes face-to-face with further consequences of her errors when she runs into Nick, Dave and Hailey on the street. She describes Nick as looking “[…] different, harder, more dangerous” (216). The trio all subject Jesse to coarse verbal harangues, and Nick starts shaking Jesse violently when she asserts that their behavior had been wrong. Adam emerges from behind Jesse and directs Nick to “[…] stay the hell away from her” (218). At this moment, Jesse realizes that, despite his arrogant bravado, Nick is a coward. He escorts Jesse home, and she develops a growing respect for his sense of morality and capacity to forgive wrongdoings. This feeling is described further in Chapter 32, when Jesse is invited by the group leader to join a mountain climbing excursion. When it becomes clear that no one wishes to be her partner, Adam steps forward and volunteers to climb with her. In the process, Adam becomes weak and slightly disoriented; he later explains to Jesse that he had been fasting for Ramadan, and had not consumed sufficient calories to enable him to climb. They reach the top of the mountain, engage in a philosophical conversation about the closeness of God, and agree to “[…] start over” (234) their relationship, which they do by introducing themselves as if for the first time.