Work Text:
Carrie’s phone buzzes as she’s taking off her makeup in the bathroom mirror.
She tosses her all-organic makeup wipe in the wastebasket and grabs her phone from its charging port on the counter.
It’s a text from Nick: Ring Ring.
Carrie rolls her eyes, gritting her teeth to curb the blush that threatens to pinken her cheeks, even though no one can even see her and it’s stupid to be embarrassed about being embarrassed.
It’s just that Nick’s coded texts are always so dumb. “Ring Ring” is supposed to symbolize a dinner bell, and it’s Nick’s way of asking if Carrie’s eaten yet without sounding like her babysitter.
Kitchen’s closed, she texts back—her own code for not hungry so leave me alone—and goes back to scrubbing glitter off her face.
Barely a minute later, her phone rings—FaceTime, from Nick.
“Ugh,” Carrie mutters. She does not want Nick to see her right now—bare-faced and puffy from the makeup remover, her hair pulled back and off her forehead with a flowery bandana Rose Molina gave her. But she can already see the screenshot he’ll send her—his own face, pouting, under the “FaceTime Not Available” screen— if she doesn’t pick up, so she just makes sure to point the camera at the ceiling.
“Is it a McDonald’s day or do I need to bring something over to cook?” Nick says as soon as the call connects.
Carrie leans closer to the mirror to make sure she’s getting all the mascara off. “Hello to you, too, Nicholas,” she says faux-brightly. “Did you not see my text, or…?”
“No, I saw it.” Nick’s voice is a little muffled, like he’s chewing on something; Carrie glances over at her phone screen, but all she can see is a moving sky and treeline. He must be walking. “I’m just not an idiot.”
“Excuse me?”
“Kitchen can’t be closed, Care. You had a voice lesson before school, dance practice after school, Kayla told me you were designing Dirty Candi costumes all through lunch, and I know Greta leaves early on Fridays and there’s no way you made yourself something before beginning your elaborate post-rehearsal skincare routine. So! What am I bringing you?”
Carrie goes tense. She’s sure her face is all red and blotchy now, and her jaw already hurts from how tightly she’s clenching it, but she resists the urge to snap at Nick or hang up the phone.
It’s not that she doesn’t eat, okay? Despite the pressure of dance and Hollywood high school, and her dad’s weird psychiatric vegetarianism, she’s not, like, anorexic or anything. She just has high standards—it’s home-cooked or 5-star, except for on the most exhausting of days, on which she can manage to stomach fast food if Nick picks it up for her. That, and she’s busy. She’s constantly doing something to further her career—keeping her grades up or writing a song or perfecting a routine. She doesn’t have time to feel hungry at all, much less do anything about it.
And Nick knows that. Because Nick knows her.
Being known is… not something Carrie knows how to deal with.
“It’s not a McDonald’s day,” she says sharply, pulling her hair out of the bandana and finger-combing it into something approaching presentable. Since he’s coming over anyway… “But I think there’s leftover veggie curry in the fridge.”
“Great! I’ll be there in ten minutes.” Nick’s face appears briefly on her phone screen, too close to the camera, to smack her a kiss. “Love you!”
“Use your key, I’m not letting you in,” Carrie says before she hangs up.
And that’s sort of a code in and of itself.
For what, though, she’s not sure.