✔️ | 𝒎𝒐𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒈 ─ 𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒚 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔

FIFTY-SIX

After dinner, Oren planned to take Carla to the annual carnival being held. Surprisingly, there were quite a few people here.

The couple walked hand and hand to the ticket booth where the nice old lady working gave both of them a smile.

Carla dragged Oren to a ride that caught her attention when they first arrived.

"The line is so long." Carla whined. 

"It's quite crowded." Oren said, pulling the girl closer to him.

"I guess." Carla said, deciding to open Snapchat on her phone and taking a picture of her and Oren and sending it to her streaks, not before saving it to her camera roll.

"Send me that later." Oren smiled at her.

The rest of the night quickly blew by. After all the stress Ramon Costa has been putting on them, Carla was able to enjoy these types of moments with the one person she loved the most. It was like a breath of fresh air that she didn't know she was holding.

The couple realized how much they missed each other's presence. They missed the times when it was simpler back then, where all they had to worry about was landing the lead role. And if they didn't, they would occupy their time on something else. Just as long as they did it together.

The two got into the Ferris Wheel bucket, taking a seat next to one another. 

"I missed this." Carla said, resting her head on Oren's shoulder.

"Me too. It was so much simpler back then." Oren replied. "How we didn't have to worry as much or have many responsibilities."

"Yeah. How did everything get fucked up so quickly?"

"Well we can start with Cassie's accident." Oren laughed, but noticed his girlfriend grow tense with the mention of her best friend. "Have you visited Cassie since she started talking?" Carla didn't say anything, giving him the answer he needed. "Carls..."

"I'm scared okay."

"There's nothing to be scared of."

"Yeah there is." Carla said. "I don't want her to think I replaced her. She is my best friend Ollie, but as selfish as I sound right now, I think I like Archer when she wasn't here."

"You don't mean that. Maybe you like it now because you can finally make decisions for yourself, you don't have to worry about seeking approval from Cassie. You are now learning to take control in your life. And maybe you're scared that once Cassie comes back, all that will be taken away from you." Oren said, pulling the girl closer to him. "And that's totally reasonable. But sooner or later you gotta stand up to her and tell her yourself it's your life, and you will live it your way. And if she can't understand that, then she wasn't your friend in the first place. What friend doesn't want to see their friend happy?"

Carla didn't say anything. Oren was right. She was scared of standing up to Cassie. The one flaw of Cassie and Carla's friendship was that Cassie always thought she knew what was best for the girl. She didn't think Carla made the right decisions 99% of the time so she made it for her. Little did Cassie know, Carla knew exactly what she wanted, but just had a hard time expressing it.

The ride was over and the two made their way over to the photo shop.

"Oh my God. You guys are such couple goals." The worker said as she rang them up.

Carla and Oren started a tradition where every fair, amusement park, state they went and visited, they would buy keychains to remember the moment. It sorta happened when Oren found out about Carla's weird obsession with collecting keychains from around the world. Of course, Oren did everything for the girl because all he wanted was to see her happy, even if it meant having a collection of different keychains that collected dust in his closet. And even through their break up, he still kept those keychains.

Carla smiled at the girl. She looked like she was around their age. Oren paid for the pictures as they thanked the worker and walked out hand in hand.

"Hey Ollie?" Carla asked as they were walking to his car.

"Yeah Carls?"

"Thank you."

Oren smiled, placing a kiss on her forehead. "Anything for you."

And with that, their romantic date came to an end, bringing them back to reality of the many secrets about to be revealed.