Carry Me
| Carry Me | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Chapter | 64 of 129 (list of chapters) |
| Published | July 4, 2011 |
| Page count | 27 |
| Major characters | Paulo, Lucy, Jasmine, David, Mike |
| Minor characters | Sue, Jessica, Cassidy, Mina, Turtle |
| Locations | Roseville High School, Roseville neighborhood, Roseville Park |
| Collected in | Volume Three, Omnibus 1 |
| Chapter navigation | |
| ← On the Sidelines | Dinner Time → |
| Read chapter | |
Paulo just wants one afternoon with his girlfriend, Jasmine. Instead he gets a feverish Lucy collapsing on the sidewalk in front of him, an accidental trip to a faraway beach town, and a song that brings him to tears.
Synopsis
A month into dating Jasmine, Paulo almost never actually gets to see her. Softball, clubs, and student council eat up her whole week, and even their after-school plans keep falling through.[1][2] Venting to David by the stream, Paulo decides that if Jasmine can’t find time for him tomorrow, he’ll end it, no hard feelings.[3]
The next morning, Paulo spots Lucy staggering along the sidewalk ahead of him, and she collapses face-first.[4] She’s burning with fever but insists she’s needed at rehearsal. When Paulo grabs her arm to march her home, she smacks him, yelling “DON’T TOUCH ME YOU’RE SPOKEN FOR”.[5] He has to tackle her out of the path of a car,[6] and while he’s distracted she quietly boards a bus asking for the hospital.[7] Paulo clings to the back window and sneaks aboard. The driver throws them both off after Lucy vomits on his chest,[8] leaving them stranded in a beach town nowhere near Roseville.[9]
Lucy spots a shopping cart dumped in a bush, and for once she and Paulo have some fun.[10] Paulo rides the cart down a steep hill, and the fever-wracked Lucy laughs right along with him until the thing gives out.[11]
Carrying her piggyback the rest of the way, Paulo coaxes Lucy into rehearsing her song with him, and she sings quietly into his back.[12] Paulo listens, and then he starts to cry.[13] Through tears, he admits he’s “gonna make Jasmine so sad” and that he just wants to be with someone he really likes. He’s still gazing at the dozing Lucy when a voice interrupts. Jasmine is standing right in front of them.[14]
Jasmine isn’t jealous in the slightest. She’s been waiting to tell Paulo that she got her dad to cancel her hated violin lessons, because he made her realize how little time she had left for fun.[15] She apologizes for neglecting him (“I really don’t deserve a guy like you..”), and the guilt-stricken Paulo can barely answer. His eyes keep drifting to Lucy.[16] David turns up in time to carry Lucy off to rehearsal, and Jasmine treats Paulo to a free day.[17]
At rehearsal, Lucy hauls herself onstage and starts singing, cracked and broken, until Mike fetches a box of medicine and tells her to stay home tomorrow.[18] Lucy bursts into tears and hugs him. “I was scared you hated me, Mike.. So scared, Mike..” Mike’s scowl wavers, then turns bitter as he looks away.[19]
That night, Paulo and Jasmine squeeze onto a single swing at the park under the stars. Jasmine tells him that if he has to know, her favorite extracurricular activity is him. Paulo, smiling up at the sky, calls it “so fuckin’ corny.”[20]
Character dynamics
- Paulo and Jasmine: A month in, the two see each other almost entirely in hallway glimpses, and Paulo is closer to giving up than Jasmine knows. He privately resolves to end things if she blows him off one more time.[3] The strain isn’t new, either. The two of them already fought over her packed schedule back in Pillow Talk.[21] Jasmine has been feeling the squeeze too. Her cancelled violin lessons save the relationship at the exact moment Paulo is ready to end it.[15] They end the chapter warmer than ever, though Paulo now knows something about his own heart that she doesn’t.[17][20]
- Paulo and Lucy: The two are close friends with one charged night already behind them, and Lucy is blunt enough to bring it up when Paulo frets over covering himself with a stolen towel: “Who cares I seen it before”.[22][23] A whole day of rescuing and carrying her brings whatever Paulo has kept buried since Another Shoulder back to the surface. Her singing moves him to tears. When he says he wants to be with someone he really likes, he means the girl on his back.[14] He never tells Lucy outright what he means, and Jasmine arrives before he can.
- Mike and Lucy: Lucy has spent weeks convinced Mike hates her. He’s been pointedly freezing her out since at least On the Sidelines,[24] and the authors have confirmed that in this period she believes he hates her and vastly prefers Sandy’s company.[25] To her, the box of medicine means the freeze is over, and she sobs with relief. Mike’s bitter look as he turns away says otherwise.[19]
Trivia & observations
- Paulo’s musing in the beach showers pins the chapter to November, which is why the beach is deserted.[26]
- David’s “I.C. Wiener? Aww, crud.” is a Futurama gag. Veronica’s commentary under the page explains that his habit of interrupting himself mid-quote came from a game she used to play with her brother, and that the joke “just felt like something he would also do”.[18]
- Per Veronica’s commentary, Lucy’s singing really is croaky here because of the fever, and Paulo cries anyway. The notes floating around him were still drawn bubbly, because “in his eyes, she still sang beautifully…”[13][18]
- The turtle Paulo trips over is a serial offender. It wrecked his skateboard ride with Lucy back in Simple Pleasures,[27] and has since tripped both Mike and Daisy mid-stride.[28][29][30]
- The don’t-step-on-the-lines game Paulo plays at the crosswalk is Daisy’s wishing game from Tread Carefully.[28][31]
- Veronica has confirmed, tongue-in-cheek, that characters vomiting on each other “isn’t the norm”, after a reader told her the bus page was sitting on the site’s front page when they first discovered the comic.[32]
- Asked about favorite chapters, Oliver said “I always thought Carry Me was a fun little story”.[33]
Related chapters
- Another Shoulder: This is the night behind Lucy’s towel remark. After a blow-up with Mike, Lucy spent the night at Paulo’s and kissed him, and Paulo gently turned her down before things went further.[23]
- Pillow Talk: Paulo and Jasmine’s schedule problem first boiled over there, in a batting-cage fight where she snapped that she’s sorry she “can’t be a slacker” like him. The violin lessons she cancels here are her answer to that same problem.[21]
- Dinner Time: Immediately after this chapter, Blur climbs in through the window griping about the “mushy baby talk” Mike saves for Sandy. Lucy’s relief is undone in short order, and she leaves the dinner table having lost her appetite.[34]
References
- ↑ Chapter 64: Carry Me, page 1
- ↑ Chapter 64: Carry Me, page 2
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Chapter 64: Carry Me, page 3
- ↑ Chapter 64: Carry Me, page 4
- ↑ Chapter 64: Carry Me, page 5
- ↑ Chapter 64: Carry Me, page 6
- ↑ Chapter 64: Carry Me, page 7
- ↑ Chapter 64: Carry Me, page 10
- ↑ Chapter 64: Carry Me, page 11
- ↑ Chapter 64: Carry Me, page 17
- ↑ Chapter 64: Carry Me, page 18
- ↑ Chapter 64: Carry Me, page 19
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Chapter 64: Carry Me, page 20
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 Chapter 64: Carry Me, page 21
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Chapter 64: Carry Me, page 22
- ↑ Chapter 64: Carry Me, page 23
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 Chapter 64: Carry Me, page 24
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 Chapter 64: Carry Me, page 25
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 Chapter 64: Carry Me, page 26
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 Chapter 64: Carry Me, page 27
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 16
- ↑ Chapter 64: Carry Me, page 15
- ↑ 23.0 23.1 Chapter 52: Another Shoulder, page 10
- ↑ Chapter 63: On the Sidelines, page 2
- ↑ “Ask response on Lucy’s reaction to Mike”. 2021-01-30.
- ↑ Chapter 64: Carry Me, page 14
- ↑ Chapter 1: Simple Pleasures, page 5
- ↑ 28.0 28.1 Chapter 64: Carry Me, page 13
- ↑ Chapter 16: Field Day, page 11
- ↑ Chapter 25: Humble Approach, page 1
- ↑ Tread Carefully, page 1
- ↑ “On discovering the comic at the vomit page”. 2018-05-03.
- ↑ “Do you have a favorite chapter?”. 2015-03-19.
- ↑ Chapter 65: Dinner Time, page 15