Pillow Talk

From Candypedia
Pillow Talk
Chapter61 of 129 (list of chapters)
PublishedJanuary 5, 2011 (2011-01-05)
Page count61
Major charactersLucy, Mike, Jessica, Tess, Rachel, Daisy, Jasmine, Augustus, Paulo, Craig
Minor charactersSue, Amaya, Katie, Stacy, David, Sam, Roger, Aaron, Jordan, Yashy, Chirpy, Justin, Tiff, John, Cassidy, Mina, Lani Amalu
LocationsRoseville High School, Daisy’s house, Lucy’s house, Hospital, Carnival
Collected inVolume Three, Omnibus 1
Chapter navigation
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It’s Lucy’s birthday, and while Paulo fills her locker with candy, Mike won’t give her so much as a word. The sleepover Daisy throws that evening digs up the real story behind Jessica and Tess’s feud and a first kiss nobody knew about, and a brand-new sparring partner is waiting for Lucy on the bleachers.

Synopsis

Lucy’s birthday starts sweetly enough, with her locker decked in balloons and stuffed with Paulo’s entire Halloween candy haul, plus a note signed “You still got me”.[1] Daisy has organized a surprise sleepover at her house for the evening.[2] But Mike walks straight past her desk without a word, and this is the first birthday he won’t even attempt his traditional surprise ambush.[2][3] Lucy tears the invitation to pieces on the bleachers, where Augustus picks that exact moment to introduce himself. She calls him a creep and storms off, which only convinces him he’s found a challenge.[4][5]

The sleepover gets off to a rocky start when Jessica discovers Daisy also invited Tess and nearly walks out.[6] Then Jasmine arrives wailing “WE HAD A FIIIIIIIIGHT!!” after her first real blowup with Paulo.[7]

Rachel then gets a bit careless mid-brag about Paulo, letting slip that she and Jessica only dated him to get at Tess.[8] Lucy is livid on Paulo’s behalf, and her needling of Jessica soon turns to slut-shaming. Jessica slaps her across the face, and Tess quietly stops the resulting brawl by taking the blame: “No, it’s my fault..”[9][10] The whole story comes out in flashback. In freshman year, Roger broke Rachel’s little brother Aaron’s arm while a punk-era Tess laughed.[11][12] Jessica went looking for dirt on Roger through his friend Craig, who cornered and groped her instead. When he threatened to tell Roger everything, she kissed him to buy his silence.[13][14] The rumors flooding the school the next day weren’t even Craig’s doing. Tess had invented and spread them herself.[15]

Back at the party, Jessica admits Paulo was her first. Rachel, for her part, heard every rumor years ago and simply refused to believe a word of it.[16] David promptly demolishes the moment by hollering “MAKE OUT!!” from under the bed.[16] Talk turns to first kisses, and Lucy reveals that Mike’s first kiss went to Sandy back in third grade.[17]

Daisy’s line about her own wasted first kiss sends Lucy into a memory.[18] On a snowy afternoon when they were about twelve, a snowball fight ended with her and Mike tumbling together.[19][20] Alone in her room afterward, Mike admitted he’d been trying to kiss her. He told her “I really really like you”, and then he did.[21][22] Lucy panicked and ordered him out. He left promising to wait until she was ready, and never brought it up again.[23][24] Back at the party, Lucy apologizes to Jessica for judging her and takes herself straight to bed.[24][25]

In the small hours, Lucy wakes Daisy to grill her about Augustus.[26] Daisy admits she liked being the only one on his mind, but warns that he’s secretive, vaguely threatening, and maybe kept everyone at a distance for a reason.[27][28] Come Monday, Lucy marches back to the bleachers to ask what he wants from her. The pair trade insults until they’re nose to nose, declaring “I don’t like you.” in unison.[29][30]

Character dynamics

Twelve-year-old Mike, draped in a blanket, kisses a rigid, blushing Lucy in her bedroom.
Mike springs the one surprise Lucy never saw coming.
  • Mike and Lucy: Whatever they were is over in all but name. Mike hasn’t spoken to Lucy since the election debate, and this is the first birthday he doesn’t even try to surprise her.[2][31] In the flashback, twelve-year-old Mike confesses and kisses her, only to be turned away. Present-day Lucy recognizes her rejection as a pattern she keeps repeating.[22][24]
  • Lucy and Augustus: They had never spoken before her birthday, but both conversations are wall-to-wall insults and neither can outdo the other. Yet Lucy is the one who comes back for a second round, and Augustus openly relishes having a challenge for once.[5][29] The only thing they can agree on, they say in unison.[30]
  • Jessica and Tess: The feud finally has its cause out in the open. The old punk-era Tess invented the rumors that made freshman Jessica a pariah, while the present-day Tess volunteers the whole ugly story in front of everyone and takes what comes.[15][32] The grudge isn’t gone, but it’s no longer a mystery to anyone in the room.
  • Lucy and Jessica: The two go from trading punches to something like respect. Lucy despises Jessica on reputation alone until she hears the whole story. By lights-out she has apologized for judging her, and she even admires how thoroughly the revenge got Tess.[9][25]
  • Jessica and Rachel: The friendship doesn’t change here so much as show its depth. Rachel heard every rumor years ago and simply decided her friend’s word outranked the whole school’s.[16]
  • Paulo and Jasmine: Their first fight is over where Paulo fits in Jasmine’s crowded schedule. Her calendar has room for softball, clubs and student council, but rarely for him.[33] She’s in tears the moment he walks off. By the end of the party she has resolved to make time for him, and come Monday the two have patched things up off-panel.[34][35]

Trivia & observations

Lucy and Augustus lean nose to nose, both grinning nastily with their ears down, saying "I don't like you." at the same time.
Lucy and Augustus finally agree on something.
  • Veronica’s commentary under the first page notes this is the first chapter shaded with color rather than cross-hatching, a deliberate return to the look of Wonderland.[1]
  • The single-panel spread of the whole class at their desks was the comic’s first fully digital page. Veronica recalls it as frustrating and beyond her abilities at the time, and it has been retouched repeatedly since.[36]
  • At 61 pages, this was the longest chapter of the comic to date, as Veronica notes under the final page.[35]
  • The mid-chapter page consisting of a single panel of cheerleader Jessica was pure mischief on Veronica’s part. Her commentary gloats, “HAHA ONE PANEL TODAY DON’T YOU FEEL RIPPED OFF / AND ON A FRIDAY TOO”.[37]
  • The snowball-fight flashback contains Sam’s first appearance in the comic, per Oliver’s commentary.[38]
  • Per Veronica’s commentary, Daisy’s late-night “Augustus” is the first time his name is spoken in the series, though she hedges that it might have been mentioned before.[27]
  • Veronica has said Augustus was originally scripted as “a sinister antagonist”, and that his role changed the minute she started scripting this chapter and saw his chemistry with Lucy: “It was like a bastard meeting his bastard match.”[39]
  • Veronica has also said Jessica’s backstory was written to flesh out her and Rachel beyond being “victims of Tess”, and that it “retrospectively hits a little different” once Jessica becomes more open about her sexuality.[40]

Related chapters

  • Confrontation: This is the “alley fight” from Lucy’s late-night guilt spiral. Back then it was Lucy who kissed Mike, right after the Cinder Station alley battle, and she immediately waved it off as “repaying” him, the same brush-off she catches herself repeating here.[41][24]
  • Lucy’s Birthday: The birthday-surprise tradition Lucy mourns on the bleachers is shown here, in a montage of Mike’s failed ambush attempts and his decision to give up on ever catching her off guard.[42]
  • Love My Way: Both carnival memories discussed at the party come from this chapter. Daisy’s unreciprocated first kiss with Mike happened on their date there, and it also shows Augustus’s assault on Daisy — the incident Lucy throws in his face on the bleachers.[43][44]
  • Back and Forth: The “pretend dates” Rachel blurts out happened in this chapter, where Jessica took Paulo to a nightclub and Rachel took him to the drive-in so the pair could gloat to Tess afterward.[45] The nightclub bathroom in Jessica’s brief memory comes from it too, and so does the hallway brawl where Lucy first punched her.[46][47]
  • Feline Filibuster: The election everyone congratulates Daisy on happened here. She won the secretary seat and handed it straight to Abbey,[48][49] while Paulo campaigned Jasmine into the treasurer job.[50] Mike’s freeze-out of Lucy also began here, with the judgmental look he gave her during Abbey’s debate speech about bullying.[31]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 1
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 3
  3. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 5
  4. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 7
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 8
  6. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 9
  7. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 11
  8. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 13
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 18
  10. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 19
  11. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 21
  12. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 29
  13. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 28
  14. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 31
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 34
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 37
  17. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 38
  18. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 39
  19. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 40
  20. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 42
  21. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 47
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 48
  23. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 50
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 24.2 24.3 Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 51
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 52
  26. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 54
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 55
  28. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 57
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 58
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 60
  31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 Chapter 60: Feline Filibuster, page 12
  32. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 36
  33. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 16
  34. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 17
  35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 61
  36. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 4
  37. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 20
  38. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 43
  39. ↑ “Ask response on Augustus’s original role”. 2025-12-31.
  40. ↑ “Ask response on Jessica’s backstory”. 2025-11-17.
  41. ↑ Chapter 14: Confrontation, page 30
  42. ↑ Lucy’s Birthday, page 1
  43. ↑ Chapter 39: Love My Way, page 15
  44. ↑ Chapter 39: Love My Way, page 16
  45. ↑ Chapter 54: Back and Forth, page 27
  46. ↑ Chapter 54: Back and Forth, page 10
  47. ↑ Chapter 54: Back and Forth, page 31
  48. ↑ Chapter 60: Feline Filibuster, page 15
  49. ↑ Chapter 60: Feline Filibuster, page 17
  50. ↑ Chapter 60: Feline Filibuster, page 18
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