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(You breathe.)
It is not enough to want to change.
This is a thought that carries Carrie onward. It is not enough to want to change. She wishes it was enough, but it can’t be. Just wanting—how can the desire be enough? Even if it’s a yearning bone-deep, a desire that she can’t shake, it’s still not enough. It makes up for nothing.
But then, how does she make up for all the things that she’s done? How can anything she do possibly be enough?
She tells this to Nick, because Nick is the only one that she thinks she could possibly speak to. Who else is there? Her dad is somewhere; she doesn’t know where, only knows the empty house and its silence that claws at her. She certainly can’t speak to Julie and Flynn, once friends and now no longer—though not quite enemies. Or, at least, Carrie hopes they’re not enemies.
She’s not quite sure what to call them.
“You breathe,” Nick says, voice cool. He looks to her, looks beyond her to where the grey waves crash against the shore. For a second, rage wells up within Carrie at the dismissal and she wants to step in front of him, block his view, force him to look at her. But then- then she breathes, forces the urge away, and listens to him.
“You breathe,” Nick repeats, gaze heavy—and he knows as well as she does that what he says isn’t easy, even though it sounds like the simplest thing in the world. “You apologise and you take steps to be better. Your actions matter here. It’s not enough to want to change, you must change as well. But, Carrie, that’s going to take time. It’s not something that will happen overnight.”
“I know.” The words snap out of her, and she breathes around their jagged edges. Is this- Does she need to apologise here? She doesn’t know.
The silence between her and Nick lingers, stretches, and Nick’s eyes turn back to her. He waits a beat and, when she still doesn’t speak, says, “Start small.” It’s a sound suggestion, but how small is small? Everything feels big in this instant, and she doesn’t know how to deal with it. She doesn’t know how to be anything but what she is—cracked and bleeding, jagged and sharp. There is nothing about her that’s soft, nothing about her that’s gentle or kind.
But she wants to change. That has to be enough. Is it?
“And how do I do that?” She asks, the words leaving her lips are sharp enough to scratch. She should care. She doesn’t. “You saying that shit doesn’t help. I need directions, Nick!”
Somehow, impossibly, his gaze turns heavier. The judgement makes it hard to breathe. There’s something in his face that Carrie can’t read—doesn’t want to read.
“Okay,” Nick says. And- And Carrie can tell that he’s trying to keep his voice soft, just as she can tell that he’s angry, though he hides it. It’s not what she wants. She wants him to scream at her, fight back, but then—she’s just searching for a fight, isn’t she? “That’s not fair. I’m only trying to help you. You don’t get to snap at me for that.”
Anger billows around Carrie like smoke. She is a thousand fractured pieces, jagged fragments, and she wants to strike out. This anger is nothing new, nor is the target, and she wants to hurl words at Nick, those that will cut and leave wounds that can’t be stitched up.
But—change.
Carrie breathes. “I’m sorry,” she says, and the words still sit wrongly on her tongue. A new flavour that she doesn’t like.
Nick nods. “Okay,” he says, and he doesn’t say that it’s okay or that he’s forgiven her, which is for the best. “I’m not going to stick around, right now. But- Thank you. For apologising.”
It’s not enough. It’s too little too late. Carrie wants him to stay with her. She doesn’t know how to exist without him in her space.
But this is Nick’s decision and she cannot—will not—take that from him, not as she has in the past. “Okay,” she echoes. The waves crash against the shore. “I’ll see you later?”
She can’t help the lilt at the end of the sentence, marking it a question. Is this the moment Nick decides to step away and maintain that distance? Will he now build a wall that she has no hopes of traversing?
Nick, though, is a good person, and does no such thing. He’s still the person who found her in the rain, who invited her in, though they are both experts in hurting one another and beginners at comforting each other. “You’ll see me later,” he agrees. “And you’ll definitely hear from me.”
Before Nick leaves, though, he pauses, feet shuffling against the boardwalk. Carrie looks at him, away from the ocean, and he opens his arms, a hesitant expression on his face.
There’s no hesitation to Carrie as she throws herself forward. They stumble backwards a step, and then Nick’s arms are wrapping tight around her. There’s so much history between them, so many arguments and mistakes, and yet Carrie is privileged enough to get this.
After the hug, Nick leaves without another word. Carrie doesn’t watch him go. Instead, she breathes.
It is not enough to want to change. You have to actually chance. But—where do you start?
You breathe, and you start small. And you remember that, above all else, you are not alone.
(Start small.)
The thing about starting small is that Carrie has no idea where to start small. Starting small for her… It doesn’t exist. Carrie has always jumped in, one hundred and ten percent, and never let herself regret her decisions, not for a second.
Not until now.
How does one start small? Breathing—breathing Carrie understands, because to sing, you need to breathe. You have to centre yourself, control yourself, and you must breathe.
Breathing isn’t- isn’t exactly easy, but doable. Carrie knows how to go about breathing. Trying to figure out where to change is much harder. Nick’s advice—start small—sticks with her, but it’s not a direction. Carrie wants a direction. She wants something clear cut, something obvious.
She wants someone to spell out what she should do. She wants someone to tell her that-
Well, it doesn’t matter what she wants, because she’s not going to get it.
Good.
Carrie doesn’t want to be handed things. She never has before, and she doesn’t want too now either. Taking the easy way is all good and well, but Carrie has never done it before and she doesn’t plan to start now.
School begins, once again, because while Julie played at the Orpheum, school never stopped. Carrie walks through the halls and doesn’t hold her breath, because she needs to breathe, but…
She doesn’t keep her head up, doesn’t stalk through the halls as she once did. Instead, she wanders through them, weaving through the crowd like everyone else. She looks at other students and sees them properly, not as pieces she could use and their worth, but as people. She sees people with piercings and not-so-hidden tattoos. She sees people with dyed hair and clothing that they chose for themselves. She sees all of this and wonders, just a bit, what it’d be like to be somebody else.
At her locker, Carrie unlocks it, head still down, and finds herself looking into it. It’s overwhelmingly pink, which she likes, and it’s organised the same way she always organises it.
It’s the same. While Carrie has changed, her locker has remained the same; in limbo. She wonders if things should have changed. She feels like something should have.
But she hasn’t changed, not yet. She’s only begun to think about it and- and she’s trying. But is that enough? Can it ever be enough? If she tries to change and fails, does that only make her the same as she ever was?
“Hey.” The voice is familiar, the face even more so, and Carrie turns to see Kayla, who looks the same as always.
The whole school is the same. Has anything changed? Is Carrie only fooling herself into thinking that things can change?
Kayla leans against the locker next to Carrie’s, and her expression is worried. Carrie can see the worry in how Kayla’s forehead looks pinched and how the corner of her lips tugs downwards. She knows worry, has seen it before, but Kayla’s never expressed it previously. Or, well, perhaps she did once—though Carrie barely remembers it—and Carrie snapped at her, so Kayla kept any future worries to herself.
Pressing her lips together, Carrie forces herself to breathe and to think. “Hi,” she offers, a beat too late—but, she wants to take her time to think before speaking. Is this something small she can change? It feels big, too big to really think about.
The frown on Kayla’s face grows more pronounced. She bites at her lip, a question warring on her face. Carrie turns her attention back to her locker to keep herself from picking at the expression, trying to read the question in Kayla’s face.
“You called off practice,” Kayla says, the words sounding like a test. “Cancelled it for a while. Are you-” She bites down on the question before it can fully form.
Carrie picks out one folder, and then another. She has the timetable for this morning memorised, but she still takes a second as if unsure. Her immediate reaction to Kayla’s words is to whirl around and slam her locker door shut, sharp, pressing forward and snarling out words until Kayla stops- stops caring.
Change, though. Change.
The words that form on Carrie’s lips are strange, unfamiliar, but she speaks them anyway. “It’s been a rough few days,” she says, not certain as to whether she wants to say more or not. She looks away from her locker, dares to meet Kayla’s gaze.
Kayla’s stare is thoughtful, calculating. Beneath it, Carrie wants to simultaneously lift her chin and also shrink. She does neither, just blinks at Kayla and forces her lungs to expand. She breathes.
“Well,” Kayla says as the warning bell rings, startling the students around them into action, “look after yourself. If you need, I’m here—and so are the rest of the girls.”
And then Kayla is gone and Carrie is left, the air stolen from her lungs because- because Kayla cares, somehow, and believes that the others do as well. It’s not as if Carrie had forgotten that the others existed; she’s not that self-centred, but she hadn’t really thought they cared about her, not really. They cared for Dirty Candy, for the band, and appreciated Carrie as the song writer and lead choreographer, but… they hadn’t cared for her, as a person, or so she’d thought.
Maybe she’d thought wrong, though. Maybe they do care. Maybe Carrie just never noticed because she hadn’t been looking for kind things, only cold things, only cruel ones.
Carrie breathes and gets to class. Starting small, she thinks on her way, just might be reaching out.
(It’s okay to lean on someone.)
After school, Carrie doesn’t meet up with Nick. They have their own separate routines, have their own separate lives, though Carrie is used to being a part of Nick’s. She knows his routine just as well as she knows her own. He has lacrosse, now, and Carrie would usually have practice with Dirty Candy.
Only she doesn’t, because she called it off or cancelled it or just did something to stop it from going ahead. Though Carrie wrote the message, she doesn’t really remember the contents of it.
So, instead of dancing or singing, Carrie sits in the library and attempts to work. She manages to finish her maths homework, makes a solid start on her history homework, before switching to chemistry where she doodles drawings and music notes in the headers rather than answering the questions.
Frowning down at a tricky equation, Carrie considers balancing it, and then gives up to write a single line of lyrics beneath it instead. She frowns down at the words, before crossing them out hard enough that she rips the page.
With a sigh, she lays down her pen, and then her head.
Time drips past her, slow, and the noise of the library is quiet. Carrie hears the flicking of pages, the writing of pens, the clacking of keyboards. None of it is familiar. She never spends time in the library.
The seat opposite her slides out and Carrie doesn’t look up, doesn’t see the point to it. She just keeps her eyes sternly closed and breathes around the tangled ball in her chest.
Change, she thinks, and wonders how she can complete schoolwork when it pales in comparison to such a thing.
“So,” someone says, and Carrie doesn’t have to look up to know that it’s Kayla. She looks up, though, because she’s confused as to why Kayla is here, when Kayla shouldn’t be here, when Kayla should have gone home an hour ago at the very least. “I had a thought.”
Carrie hums, and blinks at Kayla. She doesn’t understand why Kayla is here, wants to ask why, but that feels like it’d be crossing some line, though she doesn’t know what.
Foolishly, for a second, Carrie wants Nick to be here, to explain it. He’s always understood things better than her, especially now. Once, Carrie would have just steamrolled over everything, but she doesn’t want to do that anymore. Her normal tactic gone; and so she’s left with nothing to lean on.
As the silence stretches on, bordering on uncomfortable, Kayla continues to stare. Carrie gathers her pens, closes her exercise book, and tilts her head in question. Something bubbles up in her chest, and she’s not sure whether or not it’s a good feeling.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what my thought was?” Kayla asks, expression twisted, as if she’s unsure how her words will be received.
Understandably so. Carrie knows how sharp she is—was. How many times has she needlessly yelled at Kayla and the others? How many times has she told them that they’re not good enough, that they can do better?
“What was your thought?” Carrie asks, because there’s nothing else she can say. Should she apologise? Or would that be too strange, coming out of nowhere?
Kayla’s smile is—real, which is a strange word to describe it but the only description that fits. Her smile is real and feels real, like she truly means it. “I was thinking you don’t have enough casual hobbies,” Kayla says. “As in, the kind of thing that means nothing. So, I bought you a plant.”
The plant in question is mainly just large green leaves. It sits in an ordinary brown pot and looks like the kind of thing you can buy from any shop for two dollars. Kayla would have had to leave school to get it, and then come back for- for what? Carrie?
“A plant,” Carrie says, drawing the words out. She’s not- She’s not refusing the gift, but she’s not exactly certain why Kayla bought it, much less what she’s supposed to do with it.
Kayla hums and nudges the plant closer. It slides across the table and leaves a streak of dirt behind it. “You need to water it and make sure it gets enough sunlight. There are holes at the bottom of the pot to allow for drainage, so you should have a dish or something beneath it. Plants… Plants can’t just do everything themselves; you know? They need someone to water them so that they can grow.”
There’s something else at play here, so Carrie doesn’t point out that plants can’t do anything by themselves because they’re plants. Instead, she reaches out and touches one of the leaves, light as anything.
“Thank you,” she says, perhaps a bit too stiff and a bit late, but saying it nonetheless. “Can I ask—why?”
With a shrug, Kayla lounges back into the chair, the picture of ease and contentment. “You need a hobby that doesn’t matter. If the plant dies, then it dies and you don’t lose anything by it. If it lives, you get to see something that you’ve encouraged to grow.” Kayla’s gaze grows sharper, closer to Carrie’s normal, and she adds, “And it’s a reminder, too, that you don’t have to be alone, that you can lean on others. Whatever you’re going through, remember that.”
Carrie breathes out and thinks—you have to change; thinks—start small; thinks—you’re not alone.
She smiles. “Thank you.”
(A haircut can change a lot.)
With Dirty Candy practices cancelled for a while, Carrie doesn’t expect she’ll really see any of them, except Kayla, and even then, that had been a surprise. Really, the only friend that Carrie feels she has is Nick.
And Nick is there, for every step of the way, but he also steps away now too. More often than not, when she says something sharp and cutting, even if he flinches, he’ll meet her gaze and refuse to take it.
The space that they sometimes force between them hurts, but it hurts like a scab does as it heals—itching and annoying, but you know it’s for the better. When Nick steps back, it forces Carrie to acknowledge that something went wrong. She’s getting better at saying sorry now, finds the word easier to say and harder to swallow. It’s good in a way she can’t quite articulate, and she’s grateful for the change.
Sometimes, though, she sees Flynn and Julie, smiling and laughing, and she just feels-
Something. She’s not sure what. It’s all tangled up in her chest, an ever-swelling crest of emotions all knotted together and impossible to undo. It’s a kind of grief, a kind of heartbreak, and a kind of longing all mixed up. All Carrie can do breathe through it and think about certainties—that she can change.
It’s not enough to want to change, you have to actually change too, Carrie knows. You breathe and you start small and you can lean on those around you. And yet, it’s challenging.
It’s challenging because it’s so easy to fall back into old habits, to feel vulnerable and strike out as a result. There are so many patterns that Carrie falls into without a thought. Trying to climb out of the hole she falls into, trying to claw her way back up, it’s harder than anything she’s ever done before. But she tries, because trying is all she really has, and trying has to mean something.
Small things, Carrie thinks to herself. She remembers Kayla’s smile, the way apologies roll off her tongue, Nick smiling at her with zero hesitancy. These are the things she has to keep in mind when she considers whether it’s all worth it or if she should just give up.
So when Camilla finds her, not wearing her yellow Dirty Candy costume, Carrie is surprised, to say the least. Even more so because Camilla—Millie—just sits down at the same table as her, uncaring.
Millie leans forward. “When are we going to have rehearsal again?”
It’s a question that Carrie barely knows how to ask, let alone answer. Music is- is becoming better, more beautiful, and losing the greyness and weight that’s accompanied it for so long—and Carrie had forgotten that music could be something other than heavy and grey. After all this time trying to be perfect, after all the pressure that she’s put on her shoulders, she doesn’t need to be.
But does she feel capable of singing her own music? Of writing music and lyrics? Of dancing without forcing herself to do everything perfect?
The words that come to her mouth try to force their way through her lips. Carrie bites down on them, on their harshness, and swallows them even though it’s hard. There’s only one answer here, but it’s one that asks her to be vulnerable.
Can she do that? It’s only Camilla, only Millie, only someone that Carrie knows. But it’s also someone who has only ever known her as Carrie Wilson, daughter of rockstar Trevor Wilson, leader of Dirty Candy.
With Millie, can Carrie shed the persona of Carrie Wilson and be- just be?
Swallowing, Carrie licks her lips and, with a dry mouth, says, “I don’t know.” Her gaze falls to the table and she crumbles the wrapper in the corner, fiddling with it and tearing the corner of it.
“That’s okay,” Millie says and, eyes wide, Carrie looks up. Millie smiles at her and, in that moment, reminds her of Kayla. “You don’t need to know. Just know that you’ve got us in your corner, which I’m sure Kayla has already told you.”
“Yeah,” Carrie says, for she has nothing else to say. She licks her lips and wonders—should she say it? Try to tell Millie what she’s attempting to do? She knows that she owes explanation to no one but herself, as Nick has told her time and time again, but… she wants to.
It’s almost strange because Carrie hadn’t even though them friends, but clearly they are. Or is this the beginning of becoming friends?
“I’m just- trying for something new,” Carrie manages. It’s close enough to the truth, though it’s not entirely the truth.
Millie hums and unpeels an orange. The orange strips form a slow-growing pile on the table. The final one Millie drops, slides down the side of the pile, disrupting the rest of the pieces and causing a slow cascade. Carrie relates, because isn’t that how life goes? One more burden, one more weight, seemingly inconsequential, that sets a slow cascade that’s ultimately unstoppable.
“When I feel like doing something new,” Millie says as she splits the orange into half, “I change my hair up. You’d be surprised, a haircut can change a lot.”
Despite being yellow in Dirty Candy, Millie’s hair has never been yellow. It’s been purple and there’d been a brief green period that hadn’t lasted long, thankfully; and Carrie’s fairly certain that Millie had also dyed it fire engine red a few years ago.
Currently, it’s a bold blue, though it’s slowly beginning to fade with black roots beginning to show. Carrie’s never thought much over Millile’s hair but now, she wonders, just a little.
“Do you?” Carrie asks, and this is no longer just an idle conversation because- because a change like that would be permanent, a solid reminder that she couldn’t ignore.
While Carrie takes care of her hair, she doesn’t cut it very often. She likes it long, enjoys brushing it and braiding it, enjoys the wind blowing through it. Cutting it though or perhaps dying it—a change, a visible one.
A reminder.
“Yep,” Millie says. “I’m due to get my hair redone soon. Want to come with?”
For a single second, Carrie hesitates. But then, she finds her resolve and smiles. “Yes,” she says, “I’d like that.”
(Who people say you are is never who you are.)
The realisation that Carrie isn’t as distant from the rest of Dirty Candy as she previously thought is a surprise, but a good one. She ends up going with Millie to the hairdresser and gets her cut a good bit shorter than it’s been in the past.
Nick smiles when he sees it, and Carrie grins back, feeling lighter than she has in a while—and not just due to the haircut, though that definitely helped.
Still, she’s finds herself somewhat surprised when Sandra sits down beside her in the study period they share together. Usually, Sandra sits with her other friends. Carrie can’t actually remember a single time they’ve sat together in this class, which says a lot.
It’s not odd in the slightest to see Sandra out of her orange Dirty Candy costume, but the lack of activewear is somewhat unusual. The only times Carrie really sees Sandra is when they’re in rehearsal. Of course, she’s seen Sandra around the school, but nothing for extended periods of time like this, only a few brief seconds.
“Everyone’s talking, you know,” Sandra says, sweeping light brown curly hair behind her shoulder. She smiles at Carrie and her eyes dance with laughter, but not at Carrie; no, it’s more like Sandra’s inviting Carrie to laugh with her.
Carrie hums, frowning at a chemistry equation. “People always talk,” she says, and she knows this better than most. As the daughter of Trevor Wilson, she’s always had the media’s eye on her, though that has faded with Trevor becoming more and more of a recluse ever since Carrie was born.
Sandra’s laugh is sharp, off-pitched. It’s always sounded awful to Carrie, but it’s Sandra’s. “That they do,” she agrees, brown eyes bright. Before Carrie can return to her chemistry homework, Sandra’s expression grows serious. “But people talk and you- Are you alright, with that going on?”
It’s all too easy to hear what Sandra isn’t saying. So much of Carrie’s life, before, has been about her popularity, what people say about her, what they think of her. It’s why Carrie had forced herself to be perfect, to be the best she can be and then more.
Perhaps it shouldn’t be strange that those around Carrie, who have been part of her life and have seen her push herself hard, know just how much popularity means to her, but it is.
“Carrie?”
Drawn out of her thoughts, Carrie meets Sandra’s gaze. “I’m…” She trails off. She doesn’t want to lie, but she doesn’t want to say she’s not okay either. “I’m getting there,” she says at last, which is as much of a truth as she’s willing to give.
Sandra hums. She doesn’t say that she’s there if Carrie ever needs to talk, but Carrie gets that feeling regardless. “I don’t think I’ve ever said this,” Sandra says, “but we’ve always known you to be something other than who the rumours paint you as.”
Carrie doesn’t have a response to that and she wonders how anyone could respond to such a thing. Pausing, she wonders, but then- no.
She won’t ask. In this, she’s probably better of not knowing.
Thankfully, Sandra isn’t waiting on her to respond at all. She opens her textbook, maths, and begins to work. Carrie lets the conversation fall wayside as she turns her attention back to her work.
Together, they work in silence. It’s… nice, though not something Carrie has ever experienced with Sandra before. Maybe she doesn’t necessarily need to have rehearsal to hang out with the members of Dirty Candy? It’s not something she’s ever done before, but now seems a time for changes and differences and doing new things.
“Rehearsal doesn’t have to matter,” Sandra says out of nowhere as they both pack up their pens and work books. Carrie pauses, motions slow, and turns to look at Sandra, confused more than anything else.
“What do you mean?” Carrie asks. “Of course it does.” The words aren’t quite snappish—but close, closer than Carrie had wanted them to be. She doesn’t wince, but the thought is there.
Sandra slides a pen behind her ear, brows furrowing in thought, and Carrie waits her out, patient in a way she doesn’t think she had quite been, before. “It doesn’t need to,” she says, words careful like she’s thought this through before. “It can be just- It can just be. It doesn’t need to matter, not really. It can just be for fun, without pressure. Low stakes.”
There’s another pause, and then Sandra says, “Who people say you are is never who you really are.”
It’s been a long time since Carrie has danced, low stakes, just for fun without any pressure. Can she do it? Not yet, but maybe one day soon.
“Yeah,” Carrie says, “you’re right.” She smiles.
(It’s not always about feeling ready.)
Val seeks her out at last, which isn’t that strange. After all, Carrie doesn’t share classes with them, not like she does with the others. The only time she usually sees Val is when they have rehearsal. Sometimes it feels strange that they even ended up in a group together.
But then, a long time ago, things were different. And maybe, soon, things will be different again. A good different though, the kind of thing that makes one smile when they think about the changes time brings about.
“We’re rehearsing today,” Val tells her, standing outside of Carrie’s classroom like they had to hunt her down—and maybe they did.
Carrie’s stomach tightens at the very thought of rehearsal, of dancing, of music. Lately, she’s taken to avoiding music classes and pleading sick, but it’s likely Mrs Harrison won’t let such things stand for much longer, nor will Nick.
“I can’t,” Carrie says, but the words are weak to her ears and she knows all too well that she has no excuses. There’s only one way forward, but she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t think she can.
What if she goes to rehearsal, and anything she’s done reverts back to normal? What if she goes to rehearsal and the Carrie Wilson everyone’s always known returns? What if she goes to rehearsal and realises that she doesn’t want to change at all?
It’s not enough to want to change, but what if she decides she doesn’t want to change at all?
She breathes around the feeling in her stomach, the uneasiness that has her fingers stuttering in a rhythm by her sides. “I can’t,” she repeats, but the words are no more stronger than they had been before.
Cocking a hip, Val stares at her. With their undercut and piercings, they look like the kind of person Carrie Wilson would never spend time with outside of rehearsal—and she hasn’t, not really.
But once-
Well, once upon a times have no place for anywhere but in fairy tales, and Carrie’s life is far from a fairy tale.
“You can,” Val refutes. “And you will. It’s been too long. We need to do something.”
“Don’t you have schoolwork?” Carrie asks, searching for something in her mind that Val must do. Surely, they must have a life outside of rehearsal, they certainly have a life outside of Carrie at the very least. “What about… debating?”
Val’s gaze is a heavy thing and Carrie feels like it can see right through her. What does Val see? What does Val think? Do they see the person that Carrie has become, the person that Carrie wants to become?
“Debating doesn’t matter,” Val says with a wave of her hand and- and Carrie knows that’s wrong because she’s reorganised rehearsal and changed times just so Val could keep up with debating across the years. Of course, she’d told herself it was only to ensure that Val could commit properly to rehearsal and she didn’t want to train someone else up.
It might not be the entire truth, Carrie can now admit to herself, but she’s not quite sure if she wants to explore that any further.
She doesn’t like thinking of who she was, even though she must in order to see where she can move forward, in order to see what she needs to change, in order to see how she must be better.
Perhaps it’s foolish to argue with Val, considering that they are a debater, but that doesn’t stop Carrie from trying. Then again, if there’s one thing she has, it’s probably stubbornness in buckets. “Debating does matter,” she says back, stepping out of the path of her classmates so she’s no longer blocking the doorway. The final stragglers leave, casting her glances that Carrie ignores. “You love it. There’s a reason you’ve kept it up over all these years.”
“Yeah,” Val agrees, “but it doesn’t matter.” There’s something about how they stress the final two words, but Carrie doesn’t understand what they’re saying. The realisation is on the tip of her tongue, her mind walking a tightrope, but Carrie doesn’t fall, doesn’t find the realisation, just stares at Val.
Val sighs. “Let’s put your stuff away,” they say, walking with Carrie. Carrie falls into step and it’s easy to do, after all these years. She wonders what Val wants, wonders what she means, before forcing the thoughts from her mind.
Since it’s the end of the day, the hallways are quickly becoming increasingly abandoned as everyone eagerly leaves. Carrie doesn’t blame them. But then, after Friday she usually has Dirty Candy rehearsal, and it’s always been something to look forward to even though it does mean she frequently spends even more time at school.
This week, though, she’d been planning to head home early and- and do something. She’s not sure what. Perhaps water the plant Kayla gave her? Does it even need water yet or is it too early? She doesn’t know.
There’s a lot Carrie doesn’t know. It doesn’t bother her as much as it once did.
After putting her stuff away, Carrie doesn’t get a second to pull out her bag. Instead, she gets a second to remove her hand from her locker before Val cheerfully slams it shut. “Come on!” They say, locking a hand around her wrist. Carrie could probably try to remove it, she knows the basics of self-defence after all, but she doesn’t.
Val’s grip gentles when they realise that Carrie isn’t going to try and pull away. They smile over their shoulder and Carrie just rolls her eyes. For a moment, she feels like a little girl again, walking with her friends from one place to another. The only thing missing is the others—and the laughter. The hallways here are silent in a way that echoes.
It reminds Carrie, just a little, of home.
“Sometimes,” Val tells her as they slow down, before coming to a stop in front of a door that Carrie knows all too well, “you don’t feel ready. Sometimes you have to force yourself anyway. If you don’t take the chance, you’ll never know whether you were capable.”
Carrie licks her lips and looks at the door that opens into the rehearsal space that she’s booked for Dirty Candy for years and years and years. It’s only Val here and so she lets herself be vulnerable, trusts that things might just maybe be okay. “What if I’m not ready?” She asks.
She knows that Val has no idea of what she’s been up to, what she’s doing, what she’s changing. But her friends—and what a strange realisation, to know that they are her friends—have been looking out for her, have been checking on her, and so perhaps they have an inkling of what’ is happening.
The smile Val gives her is a small thing, but no less sincere. “Then you’re not ready,” they say simply. “But whether you are or whether you’re not, we’re going to be there regardless. Trust in that, if nothing else.”
Breathing out slowly, Carrie thinks. Start small. Lean on those around you. Appreciate that a haircut can change a lot. Remember that you’re not who people say you are. Consider that sometimes it doesn’t matter whether or not you feel ready.
Somehow, she manages a smile and Val’s own grin grows wider. “Alright,” Carrie says. “Let’s do this.” It’s not close to her usual resolve, but it’s something and that- that matters.
When she opens the door, Millie and Sandra and Kayla are already there, smiling. There’s no music pounding through the speakers, but there’s a pack of cards in the middle of the floor and the others are sitting around them.
Kayla pats the ground around her. “Join us,” she says, and her gaze is kinder than anything Carrie could possibly deserve. Swallowing, she sits down, wordless.
Across from her, Millie smiles. Her blue hair seems to shimmer in the light, though Carrie thinks that might just be her imagination. “It’s good to see you back,” she says, and she doesn’t mention music or dancing. Carrie wonders what that says about her, about all of them.
“We’re playing Uno,” Sandra tells her. “I’m going to win.”
It’s been a long time since Carrie last played Uno for no real reason, for fun, with those she’s actually friends with. It’s a sad thought, but there’s no room for sadness in Carrie’s chest. She just feels warm, from her toes to her fingertips. She smiles, and it’s not sharp.
“I’ll enjoy watching you,” she says. “Deal me in.”
(The thing about change is that it’s hard, it’s challenging, and you never notice how much you change until someone points it out.)
“Hey,” Nick says.
Carrie tilts her head back to see him. His hair’s haloed by the sun and he looks beautiful. She thinks about telling him, and then does, because she has nothing to lose. There’s no competition to be found here, and she doesn’t want one either.
“Hey yourself,” she says, smiling. “You look good today.”
As Nick sits down beside her, she notices that the tips of his ears have gone red. He nudges her with his shoulder, and Carrie laughs, tilting her head back to enjoy the sunshine. She doesn’t say another word, doesn’t need to.
Like this, with companionship and in silence, it’s enough to just be. That’s how it’s always been with Nick, Carrie thinks, but she knows she’s wrong too. Things hadn’t been like this once, but they are now, and that’s the important thing to focus on.
“I’m proud of you,” Nick says, without warning, and Carrie startles, shifting to look at him. His smile makes his eyes crinkle. “I am, really.”
Carrie turns her gaze elsewhere and runs her tongue over her teeth. She’s not sure how to respond, knows how she doesn’t want to respond, but nothing else.
“Why?” She eventually manages, prying open her mouth to ask the question. These days she looks at her failures and critiques them, finds her strengths and notices their flaws. She doesn’t know how to be proud of herself when she is only herself—messy and jagged, broken in the worst of ways and sharpening her edges to hurt others with. How is that something to be proud of?
Nick doesn’t answer straight away, marshalling his thoughts, and Carrie determinedly doesn’t turn to look at him. She’ll see- see something on his face. She wants to know. Doesn’t. She won’t turn her face to look, just exhales, and feels her shoulders shift with the motion.
“Because you’ve begun to change,” Nick says at last. “And- And change is hard and it’s challenging. You don’t notice how much you change until someone else points it out.” He reaches out, hesitantly takes her hand, and Carrie lets him. She looks at how their fingers intertwine and squeezes faintly. This isn’t romantic, doesn’t feel like it should be. She breathes a sigh of relief.
“It doesn’t feel like enough,” she admits.
She thinks about the plant Kayla has given her, how she almost overwatered it in the first week alone. She’s gotten better at it, she thinks, but one of the leaves are curling a horrid brown. She remembers Kayla’s face, remembers her saying that the plant might die and that it doesn’t matter. It’s hard to believe, but Carrie doesn’t mind the failure here. Welcomes it, almost.
Running a hand through her hair, Carrie doesn’t admire the shortness of it. It’s new, but the same as always too. It’s enough of a change that she feels proud of it, that she remembers what she’s trying to do. Millie had been right that haircuts change a lot, make it feel something tangible. For once, Carrie doesn’t care about how her hair looks—only that it feels different to what it had been for so many years.
What of Sandra? Sandra who’s known Carrie for so many years, has seen her and knows her and welcomes her regardless. She thinks of how Sandra smiles at her, greets her, asks her if she’s okay. She thinks about how Sandra said that it doesn’t matter what people think, that Carrie isn’t their expectations and- and she doesn’t have to be, either. Is that enough—to just be?
Val had told Carrie to suck it up, though not in so many words. They’d taken her by the wrist and into the rehearsal room and said that sometimes you weren’t ready for something, but sometimes you had to do it anyway. In that room, they hadn’t danced or put any music on. Instead, they’d played cards until Carrie had cried from laughter. Their yells had echoed in the room, and Carrie couldn’t remember a happier rehearsal. It doesn’t feel like such a bad thing, anymore, not when she had a happy one to compare it too.
“Does it ever?” Nick asks her, and she turns, meeting his gaze. “Sometimes things don’t feel like enough, but does that matter? We try to make it enough and we try.”
“Trying’s not enough,” Carrie says, swallowing. Her throat is dry as the desert. “It’s not enough to just want it. You- You have to be.” She inhales, breathes out, and finds her resolve. “I need to be better.”
Nick hums, doesn’t respond as he runs a finger over her nails. They’re chipped in places and she can’t bring herself to mind. “Better isn’t really a destination,” he says. “It’s more- a comparison. It’s a road, don’t you think?”
Carrie thinks about long drives in the car together, the radio crooning something soft and gentle. She thinks about being stuck out in a storm and someone opening the door to give her refuge. She thinks about drowning in someone else’s hoody and kindness that she didn’t deserve, not then.
“Perhaps you’re right,” she says. She doesn’t know if he is, but doesn’t mind not knowing, not right now. There’s a lot Carrie doesn’t know, and she’s trying to make her peace with it. These days she feels closer and closer to being successful.
Tilting her head back, Carrie gazes up at the sun as the rays caress her face. She doesn’t really think, just lets the thoughts wash through her head, floating. It’s a good day.
And maybe it’s a good day to be Carrie, too.