a study of cara evelyn

eight

Cara did not look happy. Her nose was permanently scrunched and she had rolled her eyes more times than I could count with both hands. We had entered a corner shop down the street where Cara and I had bumped into each other.

Her cousin, Ethan, stood behind the counter, examining my phone as if it were a piece of foreign object. "It'll take a couple of days," he said, avoiding Cara's gaze and looking at me instead.

"Oh, come on," Cara glared at him, slamming her hands on the counter. "That is a couple of hours' worth of work!"

Not wanting to get between their already existing feud, I scanned my surroundings. The store had shelves and shelves filled with pretty much every type of phone from top to bottom. Its blue and white walls gave off a cosy vibe. Someone had been making sure the store was at its potential, and from the few minutes spent with Ethan, I was sure it wasn't him.

When I turned back to face Cara and Ethan, their argument was still going strong. "The best I can do is one day." He folded his arms and glared back at her. I could already feel the tension between the two heating up the room. Neither of them moved an inch, refusing to give up.

"That's because you're an incapable-"

"That sounds fine with me." I cut Cara, not wanting to get in Ethan's bad books since he was going to help me, after all. Cara shot me a look as I handed her cousin my phone and agreed to pick it up the next day.

We left the store together, with silence hanging in the air like a rain cloud; This was a side of Cara I hadn't seen before. She always had something to say, no matter what it was about.

"So, what now?" I asked her, putting my hands in my pocket.

She didn't respond, and just linked her arm in mine. Evidently, whatever she was doing now, I was supposedly doing it too.

I followed her without questioning our destination, because she had a determined look in her eyes, and also because I was curious as to where she would take me this time.

"He didn't seem as bad as you described him to be," I said, trying to break the silence. It was only then I noticed the chaos in the streets.There were food trucks lined up in rows at every corner with at least ten customers waiting at each side. Lunch time had finally began.

Cara rolled her eyes. "That's because you've never played monopoly with him, or had to survive through a family gathering listening to his misogynistic ass trying to put me in my place. I only spoke to him for you."

"Well, thank you," I answered, genuinely grateful. A thin smile spread across her lips for the first time since we had entered Ethan's store. She glanced at me for a moment, and then looked back at the street before us.

A sense of familiarity traveled through my bones as we passed the house that Cara used to live in, the same wood carvings on the fence and the hole next to it. Nothing had changed. It was then, that I knew where we were headed but I still had absolutely no idea why.

"How do you think someone got all the way up there?" I asked, staring at the painting, once we had reached.

As much as I remembered the collage of faces, I was taken aback by how much detail my mind failed to register the first time I saw it. The longer I stared, the more new features I discovered.

"I don't know," Cara shrugged, sitting down on the floor in front of the painting. "Maybe we can ask the painter."

I chuckled, and mirrored her movement. "And how are we going to do that?"

"I'm going to find out who the painter is," Cara said, shifting her gaze from the masterpiece before her to me, her brown eyes shining. "And you're going to help me."