Bittersweet Candy Bowl

Paulo said he would drop Mike for Lucy back in Double Down.

I think she’s talking about when he said just say the word and he’s gone about wanting her to come back

I think she about to bring up him choosing her over mike

I think she is going to bring up how Paulo offered to ditch Mike, no questions asked.

She’s def doubling down on some things

And again I can’t blame her. I think her parent is up and believes it’s time for retribution

I seriously hope Paulo fires back or counter argues

It’s clear Lucy has Zero Sympathy and patients left for Mike, which I can understand with everything that had happen but Jesus…

I really do think a civil war is going to break out and groups will be divided

I don’t think a team sports mentality is usually all that helpful, regardless of who may deserve what. That goes double for characters and people who aren’t fully matured.

I once stole food out of kid’s desk in fifth grade when my family couldn’t afford lunch for me, and the kids who found out made sure I didn’t forget through high school that I was a rat.

People are crap at seeking actual justice in small groups most of the time and shouldn’t be trusted to mete out karma when there is so much left unsaid and so little actual oversight.

Go Paulo. Proud of you <3

We probably should’ve expected something from the title “Line in the Sand.”

I think that’s the point. He said that promise without much thought to it, which isn’t great.

feel like I’m going insane from how people are treating what was said in Double Down

if someone says they’ll do something with your approval, and then you don’t approve it, a promise has not been made. Paulo said he’d do it to help her, and then she told him she does not want his help. there is no promise, there is no longer any offer, and it’s frankly absurd to act like there could be after what happened since

Exactly,

It was just stupid empty words

And Lucy didn’t agree to it, smack him, and left.

Nothing was made or set in stone.

She’s clearly trying to manipulate the situation and I hope Paulo sticks his ground and go see Mike

So you agree they were empty words, meaning he didn’t mean it in the first place but still said it. 🤔 Interesting.

With the way this is going

I feel like Lucy has reach her limit and wants Mike to feel what she feels after so long

Like true retribution/karma.

But I feel like in some way, all that happening feels icky and wrong.

I think it’s because “technically” he supposed to already know. When they were talking before Paulo was like “yeah Mike told us what happened between you guys” and Lucy said “so why are you still talking to him.” To Lucy, she feels like Paulo doesn’t actually care what Mike did to her. I feel like that’s why she’s being callous like this right now.

Then all the easier to simply say “hey its bc of that” since he technically knows. Same words and time as saying “loyalty test”

Honestly, I hope he sticks his ground and fires and counter argues back.

@Nev oh I hope he does too, I’m just asking how likely we think he actually DOES do it. Will he go check, or does he get cowed into staying put?

Honestly hope he checks, cause he owes Lucy nothing

Especially the fact she the one that told him not to do it, and then smack him across the face for it

@Rocky technically, I’m pretty sure she smacked him for bringing up the time they had sex in Curtain Call

@nalem ooh, thanks for correcting me! I had genuinely forgot 😅

Not to mention, Lucy was that one to say don’t do that and got physical with him

Girl is using that to manipulate the situation

Yeah I’m not going to lie

I think Lucy finally reach her breaking point, and wants retribution and make Mike feel how she feels

I mean it’s understandable with everything she went though but God dang…

No one should go through this or be treated this way

It’s just an endless cycle of torture and hurting

It’s quite possible. Paulo tends to bite back though so I wonder if he’ll just take it (he did call himself a hypocrite in that same chapter) or he’ll remind her of what she said about all of them. Ie. that that they are not her friends and have never helped her.

A civil war is definitely going to break out

And friendship and loyalty will be divided.

I really hope Paulo stand his ground and doesn’t cave in

well, at one point Suit posted a picture of the dropbox where the chapter was nicknamed “Mike Dies” so… kinda, yeah

Lucy isnt a saint but shes also been spending all her time alone with augustus had to go to a new school away from everyone she knew and tried to commit suicide. Shes not the same bratty kid she used to be. shes not a saint but shes not that same person really. Also Hes right. Mike has friends he can go see. but he doesnt care about them, he only liked hanging out with this other kid because of the attention he once showered on him. hes not alone. and he doesnt have to stay out there. he has friends. he just often chooses to sink into self pity

I do think she might be trying to guilt paulo. but again no one here is saints. there all messed up shitty kids

Yeah, Sue is honestly a champ for how she handled this. I was worried that she was going to crash out on him and only escalate the tension even further.

Like a part 2?

A TO THE MEN.

This is exactly how I am feeling for Lucy right now

She’s not wrong for how she feels and I understand where she is coming from. But something about this entire situation still feels icky to me

Like maybe it’s me but it feels like she’s doubling down what August started. And I honestly think she lost all her patients and sympathy at this point and is on a war path on wanting Mike to feel what she feels as Karmic retribution.

Everything about how this is going still feels icky to me and I really hope Paulo stand his ground for whatever she’s trying to pull

Respectfully, I don’t agree with this interpretation of Lucy’s behavior, because it is a misreading of what actually happened in Double Down. Lucy never asked Paulo to stay friends with Mike.

Lucy struggles deeply with trust and vulnerability. It’s noted by multiple characters throughout the comic that Lucy tends to latch on to one person at a time. She is very selective about who she trusts, and I mean REALLY trusts, as in who she allows herself to be completely vulnerable with. She places an enormous amount of trust and safety into whoever she connects with. Of course, the people she has namely done this with is Mike and Paulo.

(I know she’s super attached to August but I think their relationship is a lot different… I won’t go on a tangent about it though.)

Anyway, when Lucy’s trust is broken, it’s extremely painful for her, and in Mike’s case it is outright traumatic.

I relate a lot to Lucy, so just speaking personally, I can understand how devastating it can be to have your trust broken, when you are someone who already struggles with trust and vulnerability.

If you are afraid of abandonment, and you get abandoned by someone you trusted, it reinforces your worst fears to your brain, and it can color your worldview in really pessimistic ways. It becomes 100x harder to trust anyone ever again. Every perceived slight or potential abandonment is taken as proof that it’s not safe to trust anyone. It becomes easier, less painful, to close yourself off and not even try to put your trust into anyone. Other people asking you to trust them can be viscerally uncomfortable and upsetting, as it feels like you’re being asked to open yourself up to the inevitability of getting hurt again.

For me, when I’m asked by someone to trust them, I feel like I’m being asked to put my head in a bear trap. It actually makes me trust someone LESS than if they had just said nothing at all, because again, I feel like the other person is literally just asking if they have my permission to hurt me. It is not rational at all, I know.

I don’t know you, so maybe you understand how all of this feels, I wouldn’t know. I’m only explaining because it’s important context for Lucy’s behavior both in this chapter and Double Down.

In Double Down, Lucy becomes cagey when Paulo brings up the fact that he knows what Mike said to her. She asks him why he is still friends with Mike in that case. I don’t think this is her making an accusation in an attempt to control Paulo’s relationships. I think it’s a reflexive expression of discomfort and distrust.

Put yourself in her shoes for a second: How would you feel if a friend knew of the abusive things another friend had said to you (things that contributed to a suicide attempt), yet they were still comfortable being around that person? Would you be able to trust them? I don’t know if I could, personally.

(And of course, I know Lucy has done abusive things to Mike in the past too, and people were still comfortable associating with her anyways, but that would be another tangent.)

I don’t even think it’s completely unreasonable to expect your friends to show some level of aversion in that case. Just look at the difference between Paulo and James. Lucy is a complete stranger to James, and yet he is immediately disgusted upon learning what Mike had said to her, and no longer has any interest in being around him.

She isn’t asking Paulo to stop being friends with Mike, she’s asking *why* he is. In other words, her question to Paulo is really, “why should I trust you?”

The interaction turns sour when Paulo keeps pushing the issue, trying to get Lucy to open up to him and let him/everyone else help her. And Lucy gets angry, and pushes him away, because again, to her, she is deeply distrustful and doesn’t want to open herself up to possibly getting hurt again.

I’m honestly not really interested in debating if Paulo is going back on his word here or not, because I don’t think it really matters either way. It doesn’t matter if he would or wouldn’t. What matters is if Lucy BELIEVES he would.

Like, this just isn’t about Paulo specifically. Focusing on whether he would follow through on a promise misses the bigger picture, which is that Lucy’s trust as a whole has been devastated. This scene isn’t her telling Paulo to not drop Mike and then unfairly getting upset when he doesn’t, it’s her reaffirming to herself that trusting anyone is a mistake.

Is that totally fair? I think it’s complicated. On one hand, Lucy has repeatedly pushed Paulo away, creating a sort of self fulfilling prophecy, where she expects abandonment and then behaves in ways that bring it about. This is like, really really classic behavior of someone with severe trust and abandonment issues. […]

It is completely ok.

It’s very clear this chapter has open so many arguments and discussion point that seems to draw a lot from people personal experience and life.

I myself included cause seeing this unfolding has brought up some, unpleasant memories of my experience with friend groups, especially in terms of improper communication and slowly being isolated

@big bean No, don’t apologize. You’re perfectly okay. 😄 I love reading thought-out replies like yours and you made some really valid points. So please keep them coming. Also, if you ever have time. I’d love to hear your thoughts on Augustus & Lucy’s friendship. ❤️

Yep, I’m definitely going to continue defending Paulo here. And it’s okay that you want to defend Lucy in the same breath. We all have characters we love, and we’re definitely going to defend them if the time ever comes. Just like you’re doing for Lucy in your comment now, while talking about Paulo defenders. Yet that’s not a bad thing. Keep loving Lucy, a lot of us love her too, even if we call her out sometimes when a situation just doesn’t feel right. If it makes you feel better, I’ve definitely called Paulo out in the past a lot as well. No hard feelings. 😊👍

no, it was a hard ask at the time and I doubt Paulo was up to it, even if he wasn’t aware he wouldn’t be able to do it. but Lucy’s turned this into a self-fulfilling prophecy, guaranteeing that Paulo would pick up on the various acts that make it look like she hates him, while he got even closer to Mike thanks to things like new years’

this also likely could be avoided, or at the very least more controlled, if everyone would just talk about what happened instead of all this vague crap

a self-fulfilling prophecy that her nightmares keep telling her that Sue, Paulo and Daisy are not to be trusted. and it looks like she’s chased away… at least one of them, possibly two

if she had just rejected things at the time and it was left there, I think it would be completely fair to call Paulo out on that. but in the following month things kept getting worse, and a single act of good will is unfortunately not enough to reverse that

We’ll know for sure who’s when the next page comes out. 😄

Hopefully it is someone else, but we’ll know for sure next page. Yet even if it is another person. It still is sad to see the group collapsing like this.

Yeah…again I do believe a civil war is going to break out

And friendship and loyalty are going to be divided

I wouldnt be suprise if this becomes the last chapter of this volume to show the split/divide in the group now and how the rest of the school year goes

I 100% agree to this

He needed to face his consequences, but not like this or how it painted him.

He royally messed up, that’s certain, but at the end of the day, they are all still just stupid kids that need a guiding hand to help them become the best they can be.

I still stand by that what August did was horrible and this isn’t how it should have went down.

Cause this is just an endless cycle continuing, but with a situation set up where one side wins.

No one should be villanize, and no one should get hurt this bad.

Lucy was hurt so much, she didn’t deserve what happen to her.

But I don’t believe this is should it should play out or end. Or what I fear, Mike going through soon what she went though and hurt himself just to prove a damn point.

You are right, everything from the start of this chapter has been a wild ride, everyone took this the wrong turn and it’s like pivoting behind the wheel. Once again, I only see things getting more heated pr dividing the group even further, it’s pretty clear Paulo is team Mike and so will daisy as she is day ones. Abbey is most likely the 3rd closest to sticking with Mike as he can understand the struggle of anger management. I find it neat the James although quick to jump, he still was willing to allow Mike hang with the other members of the track, even tho he seemed sudden to replace him for Lucy asking her if she can run. Augustus ain’t really being the hero here like some think he is, I understand his view on protecting Lucy and making Mike serve his consequences but this all was just messy and pretty sure it wasn’t thought through fully on what the outcome will be. I just hope these cats all do good 😩

I agreed.

Plus another thing to add, even if Abbey moved on, he still never liked August since then, especially what he tried to do to Daisy. If he heard what August did, I imagine it will solidify his loyalty and friendship towards Mike more than Lucy.

Again I 100% sympathize with Lucy and what happen to her and she’s justified to tell how she feels.

But I am honestly worried with how things are setting up, especially since she’s been clear of cutting ties and severing any remaining connections, I am worried her patient and sympathy reach a breaking point and she’s on a war path towards Mike

I do not know if I’m wording it right

But it feels like, she took a step forward, but two steps back on something.