Joyce Carol Oates sets up her short story as if it is going to be about a typical teenage girl who bickers with her mother and resents her father and sister. Connie goes out on the weekends with her best friend to meet cute boys at the mall- another example of a typical teenage girl's average life. So, i was not expecting a violent interaction at all. When the boy with the shaggy brown hair first rode past Connie in his gold car with cryptic writing, I didn't really give it any second thought. I honestly found Arnold Friend to be eerily charming when he first showed up on Connie's doorstep. It wasn't until Connie asked "Who the hell do you think you are?" that I even realized our main character was in some trouble. Oates' dialogue is what really creates the tension in this story. As the two main characters go back and forth, Connie quickly loses the upper hand as Arnold's menacing persistence continues. The way Arnold casually threatens Connie's family if she denies him is chilling; every phrase he utters rolls off his tongue as if his own words have no effect on him; he is confident that he has already achieved what he came there for. The ambiguous kitchen scene followed by Connie's robot-like acceptance of her unknown and possibly violent fate was actually bone-chilling. I never fully understood what was happening- I don't think Connie did either- and then the story just abruptly ends leaving the reader just as unsure and terrified as Connie.