Crank Innocence

Kristina's total lack of experience with guys adds a chilling element to her meth-induced decline.. In the space of a few months, she goes from never having been with even one guy to having serious experience with three.

When a guy tells you his name is Adam, it should probably be a red flag—especially if he's encouraging you to develop the forbidden fruit of bad habits. For more on this, check out the "Characterization" section.

Kristina's dream about the wildcats gives us a neat visual metaphor for how Adam's world gradually lures her. While being among the mating wildcats could be a pretty scary experience, she finds herself drawn to their behavior and strangely curious. In real life, this mirrors her gradual attraction to Adam—and the monster.

Kristina may gain some experience in the romance department during her trip, but the fact that she seems to actually think her relationship with Adam will last after she returns home shows that she still has a lot to learn about how relationships function. She may think they can survive the distance between Albuquerque and Reno, but as things turn out, it's pretty impossible.

Having returned from her dad's house pretty much an entirely different person, Kristina has to go through the eerie adjustment of re-entering her normal environment—and it's harder than she expects. While Kristina herself feels drawn to her old routine, like family summer events, Bree feels out of place and rebellious.

Oh, Kristina—welcome to the world of first teenage romances. Maybe love isn't always short-lived, but when you're sixteen, it usually is.

Getting grounded (again) puts Kristina in a position where everything she's been through seems to suddenly catch up with her and she realizes exactly how much she's changed. Again, it all comes down to how Bree doesn't belong in Kristina's normal habitat, but having given herself over to Bree, Kristina isn't sure how to be herself anymore.

Chase, and even Adam to an extent, seems to be able to deal with Kristina's relative innocence—but with Brendan, she finds herself severely unmatched. The fact that she's a virgin doesn't matter to him. To Brendan, sex is something that's expected and is non-negotiable. Brendan, for the record, is completely wrong in his understanding.

Kristina may have originally thought the regular routine and pressures of her life were boring, but she realizes when she returns to school exactly how much she needs them. Unfortunately, Bree has left innocent Kristina behind, and school becomes too strange a place for her to function in.

Perhaps the hardest part about this moment is that Kristina shows an inkling of understanding that Brendan might be an unsafe person—but she's too innocent still to trust her gut on this one. She doesn't really believe he'd actually hurt her.