Cara Ward Soft Quotes
“Good evening, Miss Sweet F-A,’ Cara said when Pip picked up. ‘Are you ready to Netflix and chill in the upside down?”
“That was Cara’s way of getting through the last six months; her new normal.
Hiding behind the quips and one-liners that made others squirm and fall silent. Most people don’t know how to react when someone jokes about their father who murdered a person and kidnapped another. But Pip knew exactly how to react: she crouched and hid behind the one-liners too, so that Cara always had someone right there next to her. That was how she helped.”
“As kids, Cara was always the first one to go at sleepovers, her light snores disrupting the end of the cheesy horror film. So Pip tried to recreate those childhood sleepovers, calling Cara while they binge-watched Netflix together. It worked. As long as Pip was there, awake and listening, Cara eventually fell asleep, her soft breaths whistling through the phone.”
“Pip had called her immediately, whispering from her bed, but Cara was so drunk she couldn’t speak in full sentences, not even half sentences or quarter, broken up by cries or hiccups.”
“Cara passed that same smile on to Pip. She looked tired. Three nights had gone by, three nights that Pip had been too busy to call her, to talk her to sleep. Pip knew she must be lying awake; the tint beneath Cara’s eyes told her that.”
“Naomi must have noticed she’d snuck out. I don’t think Cara was trying to be that quiet on her way out because, in her words, “Both my grandparents are practically deaf”.”
“Don’t we have a stake-out to do? Or are we gonna stand here chit-chatting like lost lemons?”
“Whole school’s talking about you,’ he said, and Pip could see him watching her out of the corner of her eye.
‘Well the whole school is full of idiots,’ Cara said, hurrying to walk on Pip’s other side.”
“What the fuck?’ Cara stared incredulously at Ant. ‘Say the word “convenient” one more time and I will end you.”
“Cara snapped. ‘So, you’re essentially calling both Connor and Pip liars? Grow up, Ant, and stop being such a dick all your life.”
“Best we can offer are marginally warm paninis for the time –’ She finally glanced up, eyes springing to Pip’s, a smile following close behind. ‘Miss Sweet FA. Long time, no see.”
“You can start your break early.’
‘Oh, Jackie,’ Cara said, with an over-flourished bow. ‘You are too good to me.”
“Remember lesson number one: we don’t threaten to kill customers.”
“Even if they’re ordering the most complicated thing just to annoy you?’ Cara stood up, with an exaggerated side-eye at Connor.
‘Even then.’
Cara growled, calling Connor a ‘Basic White Bitch,’ under her breath as she made her way towards the counter.
‘One iced pumpkin macchiato coming up,’ she said, with the fakest of enthusiasms.
“Made with love, I hope,’ Connor laughed.
Cara glowered. ‘More like spite.”
“Cara, more a sister than a friend.”
“You lost your phone?’ Cara said.
‘That’s not the something bad,’ Pip replied.
‘Yeah, no shit,’ Cara said through a nervous laugh.”
“Cara nodded, and the look in her eyes was different now, sadder. It still looked like fear, but not for herself. For the friend standing in front of her, unravelling. The friend she’d known twice as long as she hadn’t. Friends who would die for each other, kill for each other, and Pip would be the first one to lean on that.”
“Sounds like my kind of night out,’ she said. ‘In bed by eleven.’‘My kind of night out too,’ Cara said, turning around, a small smile on her face. ‘If it ends in chips.”
“Naomi filming Cara as she attempted to see how many chips she could fit in her mouth at once, spitting them into the bin while the table of drunk men cheered her on.”
