Unfulfilled Fantasy

Unfulfilled Fantasy
Chapter	17 of 127 (list of chapters)
Published	August 6, 2006 (2006-08-06)
Page count	14
Major characters	Mike, Lucy, Sandy, Lily, Yashy
Minor characters	Chirpy, Blur, David, Daisy
Locations	Mike's house, Lucy's house, Roseville Elementary School, Park, Neighborhood sidewalks and streets
Collected in	Volume One, Omnibus 1
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A letter covered in little hearts slips out of Mike's mail, right in front of Lucy. The whole Sandy backstory comes out at last: first crush, salmon lunches, a tearful goodbye, and a promise Mike has never quite let go of.

Synopsis

Lucy is walking Mike home, his leg in a cast from the race in Field Day, with Yashy and Chirpy tagging along. Yashy tests the cast by jumping on it, to predictable results. When Lucy fetches his mail, a letter covered in little hearts slips out of the pile. She recognizes the sender at once and teases Mike about taking her to prom this Friday. She insists she's happy the two are still in touch, but the smile she gives her pets afterward is a good deal less convincing. At home afterward, Lily needles Mike about the envelope ("So you're guilty over nothing?") until he finally gives up the name: Sandy.

Sandy, he explains, was his first childhood friend and his first crush, back in third grade at Roseville Elementary School. She noticed his desk doodle of her, complimented his drawing, and pronounced his name "Maishul". She shared her salmon lunches (his nose led him face-first into her food before his brain caught up), and he offered homework help in return, so study dates soon turned into everyday companionship. By summer the two were properly in puppy love, while Lucy spent the whole year being brushed aside, watching from a distance with the egg that would hatch into Yashy. Then Sandy's father took a promotion out of town. The kids promised to write, traded their first "I love you"s, and she was gone. Mike hasn't seen her since.

Third grade agreed with Mike, structural integrity aside.

Story told, Mike admits he never got over her. He still feels sure that if Sandy were here, they'd be boyfriend and girlfriend by now, but bouncing between the Lucy he sees every day and each new letter from Rickter leaves him feeling like a ping pong ball. Lily makes her point sideways, asking Yashy whether she'd trade Lucy for her birth mother and a more normal life. Yashy refuses flatly. "I'm not gonna spend time crying about something else that coulda happened." If Mike wants a resolution, Lily tells him, he'll have to speak to Sandy and look inside his heart.

Prom night finds Mike alone in the park, rereading Sandy's latest letter under the pair of trees where they used to sit. He remembers what happened there after she left. He kept coming back to cry, until Lucy started showing up to sit with him instead. When he couldn't stop picturing Sandy in her place, Lucy could tell. She burst into tears, insisting she should be the one crying, not him, and ran off with a final "I'll NEVER be like her and I NEVER want to be!" Mike chased her down, blocked her path, and teased her for still being the same slowpoke he remembered. Her rage turned into a game of chase, and just like that, they were friends again.

Thinking it over under those same trees, Mike finally lets the fantasy go. He remembers Lucy shielding him during their altercation with Alejandro, and recoils from the idea of a life without her. His love for Sandy, he decides, was part of a life that didn't happen, and the two of them can let go. The big moment lasts right up until he notices how cold it's gotten out.

Later that night, Lucy opens her door to a teary Mike and a full-blown apology. He lunges into a hug, wailing that he's sorry for how badly he treated her over Sandy. Lucy snatches his cane and chases him around the room before softening. Hearing that means a lot to her, and of course she forgives him. Then she kicks him out the door with a blushing "Idiot." Mike walks home grinning, while Yashy demands to know what's going on and Chirpy ends the chapter still hollering "What is proooom!!"

Character dynamics

• Mike and Sandy: Four years of letters have kept a third-grade "I love you" alive, and Mike starts the chapter still sure they'd be a couple if she'd never moved. Lily's questioning and Yashy's speech pry the fantasy loose, and by prom night he has decided their love belonged to a life that didn't happen, and that the two of them can let go.
• Mike and Lucy: The year Mike spent ignoring her has gone unmentioned between them ever since Lucy picked their friendship back up without ever hearing an apology. This chapter finally settles that debt. Prompted by Lily, Mike says he's sorry outright, and Lucy tells him "you know I forgive you, right?" before the two part smiling. It's the first time the old wound is acknowledged on-panel.

Trivia & observations

• This is Sandy's first on-panel appearance in the series, flashback or otherwise, and the first time anyone calls Mike "Maishul". Veronica has said Sandy was originally brought up in the comic's very first chapter, before it was replaced by Simple Pleasures.
• The ending was reworked before publication. Oliver hated the original version and pushed for a redo, and some of the scrapped pages were reused to make the following page. Per Veronica's commentary, the rewrites happened while the authors were still deciding whether Sandy would be "a continual problem in this series" or just background information.
• Veronica has since explained why Mike calls Sandy his "first childhood friend" despite knowing Lucy longer. Lucy "was a nightmare to him during the first few years," she says, so Sandy was "the first truly close person who didn't come with any strings attached, to him."
• David's little song during the tutoring montage, "♪ You teach me and I'll teach you! ♪", is a Pokémon theme reference.
• Chirpy's cluelessness about prom is a swapped personality trait. According to Veronica's commentary, in her pre-BCB comics Yashy was the gullible one and Chirpy the smarter one who rolled her eyes at her.

Related chapters

• Prom Preparation: The prom Mike skips here is the eighth-grade farewell dance Daisy was planning back then, already angling for Mike as her date.
• Confrontation: The "altercation with Alejandro" Mike recalls in the park took place in this chapter, and the memory of Lucy shielding him is what seals his decision to let Sandy go.
• Field Day: Mike's cast and cane come straight from the previous chapter, where he broke his leg tripping over a turtle mid-race against Lucy.
• Farewell, Middle School: The next chapter picks up on the following Monday. Daisy demands to know why Mike wasn't at prom, and Lucy starts wielding "Maishul" as a tease of her own.
• Hot Pursuit: Mike's hope that a letter will one day announce Sandy's return gets a bittersweet answer in this chapter, when she visits and he misses her entirely.
• Left Behind: A later chapter retells the third-grade flashback from Lucy's side, covering the year she spent alone while Mike orbited Sandy.