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Carrie comes back to L.A. on a Monday.
The weeks she spent living with her grandparents—the elusive Shaws—in New York were all sort of a blur. She couldn’t leave the house or even turn on the TV without getting bombarded with questions and news about her dad’s… she doesn’t even want to think it.
He’s alive, that’s all she knows for sure. Stable, according to his assistant Katie, who’s staying at Carrie’s house until her dad gets home from the hospital. But she doesn’t think a few weeks living it up in the psych ward and then meeting her at home for Friday night dinner was exactly his plan when he sent her away.
At school, Carrie keeps her head held high (and blinks back stubborn tears) as kids shout questions at her and teachers give her pitying looks. She pays as little attention in class as she can get away with—which isn’t much—and focuses on just getting through the day.
She avoids Julie. And Flynn, by extension, but Flynn was only ever Carrie’s friend because they were both Julie’s, there’s no way she won’t take Julie’s side in this.
Side in what, Carrie doesn’t even really know. All she knows is that when Carrie asked her dad why she had to stay with some old people she’d never met, why she couldn’t just stay with Mami and Papi—Mr. Molina—and Julie and Carlos…
Her dad looked at her—eyes big and bloodshot and manic like his meds make them get—and said, “Rose doesn’t want us seeing them anymore. Your grandparents will be good to you.”
So she avoids Julie, obeying her father’s wishes for probably the first time in her entire almost-eleven years of life.
Unfortunately, Julie knows her too well. Carrie’s barely taken one bite of her lunch when the door to the bathroom stall she’s been hiding in bursts open, startling her into dropping her tofu and cheese sandwich onto the gross bathroom floor.
“Ugh! Julie!” she splutters, even though she wasn’t even hungry anyway. “What is wrong with you, are you crazy?!”
“What’s wrong with me?” Julie shouts back. Her face is flushed, her eyes and hair wild. It’s not often that she gets angry, but Carrie knows her well enough to see the threat of tears in her eyes. “Carrie, what the heck! Two weeks ago, you were helping me decorate my new room, and then you just disappeared, and your dad was in the hospital, and I didn’t know where you were because no one will talk to me!”
Her voice breaks, and an inexplicable anger starts to boil in Carrie’s stomach. “Stop crying, you’re such a baby!” she snaps. “And since apparently, you can’t take a hint, I don’t want to be your friend anymore.”
Julie looks abruptly stricken. “What? Carrie, you can’t—I get you’re upset, okay? I—I’m sorry I was mean, I didn’t want—I just didn’t know what was happening, and my parents seemed so sad, and—but it’s okay, you can talk to me, you—you’re my sister!”
“Oh, come on, I’m not your anything,” Carrie scoffs, pushing past Julie to fix her hair in the mirror. She can feel something hot and ugly bubbling up her throat, but if she tries to hold it in, she’ll cry, so instead, she lets it all pour out. “Why would I even pretend to be your family anyway? It’s your mother’s fault my dad tried to kill himself.”
In the mirror, Julie’s face goes ashen. “What?”
Carrie flips her hair over her shoulder. “I don’t know what she said to him, but apparently she wants nothing to do with us now.”
Julie shakes her head. All the anger appears to have flooded out of her, leaving her small and drained-looking. Her hands are trembling at her sides. “Carrie, what? That’s not… possible.”
Carrie turns to face her again, jaw tight. “You know what? Maybe we are sisters. After all, everyone thinks your mom cheated on your dad with my dad. She probably did! She’s always been a slut.”
Julie’s mouth drops open. Her eyes well with tears. She hisses, mean in a way Carrie’s never seen her be before—a way that tells Carrie once and for all that this isn’t going to be a fight they get over—“At least my mom wanted me.”
Carrie’s stomach fills with ice. She can feel a smile plastered to her face of its own will, immovable and frozen. But she keeps her voice steady, and her eyes dry, as she says, “You’re right. No, Julie, really, you’re totally right. My mom didn’t want me, and neither does your mom, or my dad, or anyone! So why bother swimming against the current, huh? Join the club. And leave me alone!”
She stomps out of the bathroom, slams the door behind her, and only when she’s far away does she let herself cry.