Masquerade and Reckless Waves

Why does receiving reviews from readers on Inkitt before I've finished publishing the whole story give me such crazy anxiety? I'm super grateful that people are enjoying it and wanting to share that enjoyment with others, but holy moly does it make me feel pressure to deliver something mindblowing at The End. And honestly, I don't think mindblowing is in my repertoire. I would love it if it were, but let's be honest, I'm no genius. I just hope it's satisfying enough to not make anyone regret the stars they're giving it.

Anyway...

I've posted chapters 26 and 27. We're at the point of the story when tensions are starting to wreak havoc. There are a lot of suppressed emotions going on, not just inside Cara, but among the group. Cara seems to have this idea that if she can control herself, she can control everything, and it'll all be just fine. Is that a narcissistic tendency, or do most people with anxiety feel that way?

Chapter 26, Masquerade, finds Cara acting on the decision she made at the end of chapter 25 to choose her love for Griffin and maintaining a happy marriage over letting herself get carried away with the project she's working on with Styles. It's a painful sacrifice. Her growing feelings for Styles seem to be tied directly to their shared passion and inspiration for the project, and the flow of the creative stream they are both wading in.

Distancing herself from Styles emotionally means stepping out of that creative stream, and immediately the project feels throttled for her, like she's lost her connection to it and her passion for it. She needs to find a way to dial back into that zone without it being about Styles' contributions or how he motivates her.

And of course, a decision like that wouldn't be complete without a test being thrown at her immediately after, with Willow inviting herself and Styles over to her and Griffin's house for a dinner party. And this is where Hannah's tarot reading becomes relevant.

Two of Swords

In chapter 25, Hannah tells Cara, "The signs are where you look for them". So when Cara spots the two crossed plastic cocktail swords on the table where Willow has unpacked her bag of goodies, Cara immediately remembers Hannah's words of wisdom about not having all of the information, and basically not being in control of everything that's happening.

She can only control herself, not the actions of others. And so as difficult as it is, she passes the test thrown at her to maintain distance from Styles and protect her marriage, but by the end of chapter 27, we suspect that someone else has failed the same test - and it wasn't even on her radar that Willow and/or Griffin might be fighting the same Reckless Waves that she's been dealing with.

Chapter 27 is kind of a turning point, I guess. Maybe I'm not literary enough to really understand what I've done there myself, and whether I've set it up correctly. Cara's so focused on her own feelings and choices that she's taken everyone else at face value and assumed she's the only one going through stuff. An explosive event that doesn't directly involve her? She did not see that coming, and it seems neither did Styles.

He remains the big enigma in this story, even more so than River. Despite the connection Cara has with him creatively, his face card remains blurry for her, and the question mark of whether he feels the same connection she does has been nagging her. But with him storming out of the house after Willow and Griffin's suspected transgression (and actually, we don't even know what, if anything happened - that Two of Swords applies to us too), we assume his mind is now pre-occupied with anything but Cara and their project.

The hallucinated snow that Cara feels falling on her as she retreats to the backyard in the wake of the evening's disaster is another callback to the snow globe, and the idea that she's living inside of a another core memory in the making, that this period of her life is unfolding inside a self-contained dome and she's aware that she has a finite amount of time in this place.

The chapter title Masquerade is pretty self-explanatory, regarding Cara's decision to mask her emotions for the good of everyone. Reckless Waves refers to something that Willow says to Cara about her hair, and also hints at the reckless waves of emotion that Cara is feeling internally, and the reckless waves of emotion and action that seem to happening externally on the part of the other characters by the end of the chapter, with Cara's mask still firmly in place.