New Year’s Resolution

New Year's Resolution
Chapter	119 of 129 (list of chapters)
Published	July 10, 2023 (2023-07-10)
Page count	40
Major characters	Paulo, Mike, David, Lucy, Augustus, Abbey, Molly
Minor characters	Rachel, Matt, James, Carol, Harvey, Sam, David’s mom, Rodrigo, Jasmine, Cassidy, Janet, Aaron, Sandy
Locations	Lucy’s house, Mike’s house, Roseville Park
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Lucy toasts the end of a terrible year, Paulo finds his mother’s new family with a single Facebook search, and Mike tells his best friend he loves him. New Year’s Eve in Roseville has never been so eventful, or so teary.

Synopsis

Lucy’s family has packed the house for New Year’s Eve, and with her bad ear, a party that loud is impossible to follow. She escapes to the front steps and joins Augustus, where the two agree that 2008 can rot. They shake hands on their resolutions: she wants him to graduate and get into the best college on earth, while all he asks of her is to “stay alive.”

Over at Mike’s house, a worn-down Mike has boxed his game consoles up again, since playing them reminds him of Lucy. The boys settle in at the computer instead, where Mike admits he mostly uses it to follow Sandy’s budding modeling career, and introduces Paulo to Facebook.

Paulo shoves Mike out of the chair to run a search of his own: his mother. Nothing turns up until Mike wonders aloud whether she remarried. They then find a profile for “Rose Muir”, full of photos of a new husband and a beaming daughter of about five. Paulo silently smashes Mike’s mouse on the floor, then heads out in tears to watch the park fireworks, with Mike and David in tow.

At the park, Abbey snaps at Paulo out of sheer habit before catching himself with an apology (“Force of habit.”). The two manage some genuine conversation, and Abbey even lets slip that his little sister Molly’s odd behavior around Paulo is a crush. But when Paulo asks what having a baby sister is like, Abbey answers honestly that he can’t imagine life without his. Paulo’s fist trembles as he answers.

Mike finds him crying alone under a tree, kneels down, and holds him as Paulo explains what he saw on his mother’s profile. The half-sister must be six or seven by now, a whole person his mother had as soon as she left him, and Paulo sobs that she completely replaced him.

Paulo cries that nobody loves him, and Mike answers: “I’m asking because I love you, Paulo. You’re my best friend.” Paulo demands to know why Mike cannot love him romantically, then starts listing the people in Mike’s life. James is obsessed with him, Lucy never really gave him up, and Daisy deserves better than either of them. Mike teases that he could always ask Daisy out himself. Paulo recoils and protests that nobody at their school is good enough. Mike starts laughing, and Paulo joins him.

Mike then talks about the people he has rejected. He hates having had to reject James and Daisy, and he hates losing friends over it. As the crowd counts down, he tearfully insists that he loves Paulo just as strongly, and on the count of one the two embrace beneath the fireworks. Mike asks if Paulo is okay with that, and gets a teary, smiling “Yeah. I’m good.” David piles in for a group hug, and Paulo admits that he feels loads better after the whole corny night.

Character dynamics

Molly protests the crush allegations with twenty dollars’ worth of balloons.

• Paulo and Mike: Paulo and Mike have been moving past their old rivalry for a while. Mike calls Paulo his best friend and is startled to realize the title used to be Lucy’s — “Things have changed.. a lot.” Paulo wants Mike to love him romantically, but agrees they can remain best friends. By the end of the night he trusts Mike even with his most embarrassing secrets.
• Paulo and Rose Muir: Until now, Paulo did not know what had happened to his mother after she left. The Facebook photos show her with a new husband and a young daughter. Paulo tells Mike that she had the girl after leaving him and cries that she replaced him.
• Paulo and Abbey: Paulo and Abbey’s recent truce is still awkward, but Abbey catches his own hostile reflex mid-snap and apologizes. They manage some genuine teasing, and by the end Abbey talks to Paulo about his sister the way an old friend would.
• Molly and Paulo: Abbey’s little sister has a crush on Paulo, and by the end of the night everybody involved knows it. Her hasty revision of her “get BUFF” resolution gives her away, Abbey says it outright, and Paulo guessing her age at six does not help.
• Lucy and Augustus: Augustus tells Lucy that the months since her return are the only reason he feels hopeful about the new year. For her resolution, he asks only that she stay alive.
• Paulo and Rachel: Rachel is still fond of Paulo, but she keeps the limit she set in Unspoken Rule. Paulo does not know about that limit until she sees his tears, apologizes, and walks away instead. He stands there holding himself after she leaves.

Trivia & observations

Best friends, as of about ten seconds ago.

• This is the first time Paulo’s mother is named anywhere in the comic. Before “Rose Muir” turns up on Facebook, her only appearance was as an unnamed figure in Paulo’s memories in Mother’s Day.
• Veronica has said Molly’s crush on Paulo previously existed only in the BCI side comics, and that this chapter was written to finally put the two in the same room and establish it in the main story. She’s also pleased Abbey learned about it only after befriending Paulo, since he gets to tease Molly instead of guarding her.
• Veronica later described Mike’s behavior here as fear of abandonment: he was comfortable being pined for, but Lucy and Daisy have “left him”, and James’s whirlwind crush “was a real short-circuit to Mike’s system”.
• The computer screens are a little 2008 time capsule, right down to the “Digg” and “del.icio.us” share buttons on the news article about Sandy.
• That article covers the fashion scene of Maraschino City, which happens to be the same city Paulo’s mother moved to when she left.
• “Aibou”, David’s pet name for Paulo, is Japanese for “partner”, and he’s been using it since their beach heart-to-heart in Golden Hour. Per the commentary under page 38, David is “totally cool being a permanent Tomoyo” for “his Paulo-chan”, a Cardcaptor Sakura reference.
• Paulo sneering about Mike’s “imaginary girlfriend” is one of his oldest taunts, and he’s been recycling it for years. It lands rather differently now that the girlfriend has proven real, and unfaithful.
• Per the commentary under page 1, the chapter grew heavily in revision, with whole scenes scrapped and completely redone (the scrapped pages went to Patreon). The authors also joked that at one page a week, it would “last all the way until the new year”.

Related chapters

• Mother’s Day: The fifth-grade flashback chapter where Paulo’s mother walks out for Maraschino. It’s her only other appearance in the series, and the same chapter shows how Paulo and David first became friends.
• Time Out: Paulo first opened up to Abbey about his mother’s abandonment in this chapter’s principal’s-office talk, and even mused about looking for her, since “Maraschino isn’t too far away.” Paulo follows through on that idea with the Facebook search, then speaks with Abbey again at the park.
• Love Again: It covers Lucy’s suicide attempt, the night Augustus saved her life, and his move into her family’s guest room. That history is why his only resolution for Lucy is that she stay alive.
• Date Night: In the chapter immediately before this one, James kisses Mike and is turned down with “I’m sorry. I have a girlfriend.” Mike brings up that rejection here when he tells Paulo how much he hates losing friends over feelings he can’t return.