Moments Apart

From Candypedia
Moments Apart
Chapter98 of 129 (list of chapters)
PublishedSeptember 2, 2017 (2017-09-02)
Page count26
Major charactersDaisy, Paulo, Abbey, Sue, Rachel
Minor charactersMike, Madison, Jessica, David, Jasmine, Daisy’s mom, Teddy, Amaya
LocationsRoseville Park
Collected inVolume Seven
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Daisy turns sixteen with a picnic in the park, a chocolate cake, and a guest list full of landmines. Paulo walks into a wall of glares, Abbey arrives uninvited, and one quiet chat under a tree gets surprisingly honest.

Synopsis

Mike arrives late to Daisy’s balloon-decorated birthday picnic in the park, where her dad, Teddy, is manning the grill in a Hawaiian shirt.[1][2] Mike looks utterly exhausted, and when his gift is set down beside the one Lucy gave Daisy, his expression turns dark and guilty.[2] At the table, Rachel teases the birthday girl about continuing her “new tradition” of drinking, and the joke sours fast. Daisy is soon convinced that if Abbey hates her now, she deserves it.[3][4]

Paulo turns up after all, his shift covered. Daisy welcomes him warmly, which is more than anyone else manages: Jessica glares, Madison flips him off until Rachel makes her behave, and David watches with sparkling delight.[5][6] Then Mike points out the next arrivals, and Paulo dives under the picnic table. Jasmine has come, and she’s brought Abbey.[6][7]

Jasmine brought him uninvited because she thought the exes should see each other.[7] Abbey awkwardly offers Daisy the gift he’d picked out long ago and says he’ll leave, but Daisy apologizes to him instead, “for everything.. for what I put you through.”[8] When Daisy’s mom, apparently unaware of the breakup, wanders over looking suspicious, Daisy puts on a frantic show of cheer and drags Abbey off to eat with everyone.[9]

Over lunch, Sue catches Abbey smiling fondly at Jasmine and asks him point-blank whether she’s his rebound.[10][11] He denies it and admits with a blush that he genuinely wanted to come. He and Sue end up sharing a laugh over the time he elbowed Paulo in the neck.[12]

Later, Daisy finds Paulo eating his cake alone under a shady tree by the stream.[13] He admits Lucy practically twisted his arm into coming, which visibly deflates her. His venting about Lucy is startlingly blunt.[14][15] Daisy swears Abbey will never come between them again. They each struggle to believe they could matter so much to the other. Paulo, in a tiny shrinking voice, calls her brilliant.[16][17][18] Daisy explodes that he’s “just really handsome, okay?!”, that he’s strong and soft, and gets halfway into comparing his smell to Mike’s before Paulo cuts her off.[19] He tells her she’s a catch, and dodges her delighted question about whether he’s ever thought of her that way.[20]

Abbey watches all of this from the table with a darkening glare and insists to Sue that Paulo is only waiting for a chance to take advantage of Daisy. David bellowing “MAKE OUT!!” does not help.[21] His rage soon gives way to grief. Sue tells him Daisy’s life isn’t his to live now. When Abbey protests that he only ever wanted to make sure of things while they were together, she answers, “It wasn’t then, either.”[22][23] Mike calls him over for volleyball, and Abbey concedes she’s right, wipes his face, and asks to serve.[23]

Character dynamics

Paulo sweats and waves stiffly at Jessica's clenched-fist glare, Madison's hateful stare, Rachel's apologetic smile, and a gleefully sparkling David.
Paulo gets two glares, one apologetic smile, and one delighted David.
  • Daisy and Paulo: Lately their friendship has been guarded. Paulo is convinced he “couldn’t be” her best friend after everything and only attends because Lucy forced his hand.[17][24][14] Under the tree, each discovers how absurdly highly the other thinks of them, and the compliments escalate well past friendly. They still call it friendship, but the attraction is now out in the open.[18][19][20]
  • Abbey and Sue: Not close friends, by Abbey’s own account, but Sue turns out to be the one person willing to be completely straight with him.[12] She grills him about Jasmine, assures him he’s a good guy, and shares a dark laugh with him over the neck-elbowing.[11][12] When he spirals over Paulo and Daisy, she’s also the one who tells him Daisy’s life was never his to manage, not even while they dated. He takes it with an “I know you’re right.”[23]
  • Abbey and Daisy: The exes haven’t spoken since Abbey ended things in front of the whole cafeteria, so this party is their first real contact, and it lands somewhere near civility.[25][8] He planned to drop off the gift and go. Between Daisy’s apology and the cheerful act they stage for her oblivious mom, he ends up staying for cake and volleyball instead.[9][23]
  • Abbey and Jasmine: Jasmine has been Abbey’s supportive friend through the whole mess, and Sue is openly curious whether that’s the entire story. Abbey insists it is, though she catches him smiling awfully fondly at Jasmine all the same.[10][11]
  • Paulo and Lucy: Lucy never appears at the party and still manages to steer half of it, having bullied Paulo into showing up at all.[24][14] This time, Paulo says plainly how much it hurts. He tells Daisy he still loves her, and in the same breath that being strung along that much stings.[15]

Trivia & observations

Paulo reels back with pinprick pupils, fur standing on end and tail puffed up after Daisy calls him handsome.
Being called handsome nearly ends Paulo on the spot.
  • Per Veronica’s commentary under the first page (“HEY GUYS, REMEMBER COLOUR??”), the chapter marks the comic’s return to color after a stretch without it.[1]
  • “Teddy” is not Daisy’s dad’s real name, nor short for one. Veronica has said Daisy’s mom calls him that because he looks like a teddy bear to her, and that Daisy’s parents are canonically nameless.[26]
  • Veronica has said one of her favorite things in this chapter is showing “wildly different impressions on one person”, and that the cast’s contradictory takes on Paulo are entirely deliberate.[27]
  • The grinning turtle that fells Teddy is a running gag as old as the comic itself. It wrecked Paulo’s skateboard back in Simple Pleasures, and has since tripped Mike, Daisy, and a Lucy-carrying Paulo.[10][28][29][30][31]
  • Abbey mentions he and Mike are in the same guild, “Yearrug” — the name Sue’s character introduced herself with (“Name’s Yearrug, traveler”) back in Local Area.[12][32]
  • David’s “MAKE OUT!!” is a repeat performance. He bellowed the exact same thing at a tearful moment between Jessica and Rachel during a sleepover.[21][33] Veronica’s commentary reckons the day, between ant-covered hotdogs and watching his ship interact, “might as well have been his own birthday”.[21]
  • Jessica’s party outfit was designed to evoke ice cream. Veronica’s commentary admits she “still can’t stop thinking of Baskin Robbins”.[13]

Related chapters

  • Love Again: Abbey dumps Daisy in front of the entire cafeteria, and Daisy and their friends are still tiptoeing around the breakup at this party. It’s also where Lucy hands Daisy the wrapped present that stops Mike cold at the gift table.
  • After You: Paulo grumbles under the tree about having his arm twisted, and this is where the twisting happened. Lucy pins him against a Ferris wheel car and flatly orders him to go to Daisy’s party.
  • Happy Hour: Rachel’s birthday party, the one Mike and Daisy spend the picnic apologizing for. Daisy got drunk there and demanded to know what made Lucy better than her while Abbey listened. After that night, she’s still convinced she deserves Abbey’s hatred.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 1
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 2
  3. ↑ Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 3
  4. ↑ Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 4
  5. ↑ Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 7
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 8
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 9
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 10
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 11
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 12
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 13
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 14
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 16
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 17
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 18
  16. ↑ Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 19
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 20
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 21
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 22
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 23
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 24
  22. ↑ Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 25
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 23.3 Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 26
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Chapter 97: After You, page 25
  25. ↑ Chapter 95: Love Again, page 17
  26. ↑ “Ask response on Teddy’s name”. 2026-03-31.
  27. ↑ “Ask response on the cast’s impressions of Paulo”. 2018-03-14.
  28. ↑ Chapter 1: Simple Pleasures, page 5
  29. ↑ Chapter 16: Field Day, page 11
  30. ↑ Chapter 25: Humble Approach, page 1
  31. ↑ Chapter 64: Carry Me, page 13
  32. ↑ Chapter 82: Local Area, page 11
  33. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 37
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