#bcb analysis

So I'm gonna explain how I see it!

First off, as background, Augustus blames Mike for like all of Lucy's worst moments. Augustus had each of these bits presented to him from either a view that revolved around her, or a view that was directly from her perspective.

Confrontation -- Augustus heard about the dumb drunk guy that led his own friends into a trap, leading to a guy AUGUSTUS is afraid of to focus obsessively on how much he hates "the white one" (Lucy). December --Augustus sees Lucy literally bleeding out in the snow because of things Mike said to her directly, and knows it is directly because of Mike that she is there based on things she has shared with him. Eternal Flame -- Augustus is pushed for a kiss he doesn't want in his own bedroom, something super out of character for her & super bad, then heard about how she wanted to die because of Mike. It's implied that Lucy later elaborated about what Mike did.

So Augustus has a pretty skewed view of Mike! And to be fair, he started out being angry but civil in "Burnt Bridges." And that interaction went well -- Mike was contrite, bursting into tears and apologizing repeatedly instead of fighting back. Gus even mentions how he expected it to go differently and was glad about the outcome.

And Mike makes a point to say "Don't worry about protecting her from me," and a few pages later says "I'll never bother her again."

So Augustus finishes this interaction thinking "Okay, he's fucked up, but at least he's trying to fix it in the only way that he can."

And then Lucy starts having nightmares again. And they have this interaction:

Lucy is obviously not fine here. She doesn't want to talk about it, she doesn't want to read into the nightmares, but we can see that they are having a negative impact on her daily life. She wakes up tired, she snaps at Paulo when he's trying to get Lucy's opinion on Daisy acting weird, she visibly pulls away when she's at Burgertron with Paulo and Daisy, she's all-around just having a bad time. And the nightmares have increased in frequency at this point, indicated by our views into the dream sequences and by Augustus saying "You've been having nightmares again, haven't you."

Just presenting this all as a way to indicate -- Lucy says everything is fine, but she is NOT reliable here.

And immediately after this, Mike shows up outside. And Augustus asks if Lucy is okay, and she insists repeatedly that she is. And one could read this sequence as yes, she is fine, she's just irritated that he's asking over and over again. But we JUST got an indication that she is saying she's fine when she's obviously not. Pairing that with the fact that Augustus probably knows her best out of any of the cast (besides maybe Mike) at this point, and it all seems to imply she is very much not okay with it. She also lashes out at Augustus, saying "I missed when you were a creep," trying really hard to get the focus off of her.

So after this, Augustus tries again -- and again is very civil (albeit blunt). He approaches Mike and asks him to specifically not go outside during lunch. And he's reasonable about it:

He's not asking Mike to leave the school, he's just saying "hey, can you give us this one space to not be around you, because she's having a bad time."

And that is the only place at school where Lucy can guarantee that she won't have to see Mike. They share classes, they have the exact same walk home, it's unavoidable to run into each other everywhere else. Doesn't she deserve the basic decency of having one place to get a brief respite?

And yes, she COULD leave the school -- giving up time with her closest friend, giving up her routine, leaving her family to return to living with her aunt, giving up the home she has grown up in. Fucking up her life even more than she already has for this one idiot.

She could, also, theoretically go back inside. But:

She left that space FOR Mike. And with this pattern, of Mike just following others around to different spaces based on who has a crush on him at the moment, who can say if he'll actually stay outside? And then, what, Lucy has to spend the brief time she can get away from him trying to figure out which place he wants to hang out in? Bouncing back and forth repeatedly from spot to spot, seeing him constantly even as she tries to avoid him?

That sucks dude! And it isn't really a big ask for Mike to just leave her this one space. He has a million other friends he can hang out with, so it's not like Augustus is trying to isolate him. It's just basic human decency for Mike to see that his going outside is having a negative impact on a person he's hurt repeatedly, and to have him go "oh okay I will stop doing that then."

But instead, his response is "I can't," by which he really means:

Mike is the oldest, but is never put in the "surrogate parent" position. Hayley babysits most of the time, and Mike is expected to just do "older brother" things at the MOST. He barely has to watch his youngest brother. We know that his mom does this on purpose -- she doesn't even like depending on Hayley to watch her youngest son:

So his mom is conscientious of the things that she puts on her kids. To... some degree:

We find out in "Second String" that the specific expectations she puts on Mike are an emphasis of "focusing on your studies." She sees him as her special boy who is getting straight A's, and wants to encourage him to keep on that path. She doesn't want him to have any distractions.

By extrapolation, it seems like she thinks everything is fine as long as he's getting those A's. And it seems like he is very, very focused on continuing to get those straight A's to convince her that everything is fine. Sort of a feedback loop. But her specifically saying "You never ask for anything" as a phrase of PRAISE... it's going to indicate to Mike that not needing anything is the best thing he can do for her. She isn't hiding her stress about his father from him, she isn't hiding her stress about work from him, so he knows exactly how much pressure his mom is under. And he knows, from what she's told him, that having any problems or asking for anything will contribute to that stress. So he doesn't tell her about his problems.

This is the extent to which she knows about his struggles with Lucy. He didn't even tell her they had a falling-out, let alone anything about the extent of issues that arose with her over the years.

All of this leads me to believe that his mom has, probably unintentionally, rewarded Mike for putting on a brave face and minimizing his own needs as much as he possibly can. This is further shown by the fact that he does that with his friends, too:

He can't suppress his feelings forever, so sometimes they explode out of him to a crazy degree -- and he immediately regrets it and tries to shove everything back down out of sight again. Because he knows that showing he's having negative feelings is going to stress other people out, which is Bad, which will yank away the "perfect boy" title that his mother has bestowed upon him.

And he clearly does not feel he deserves this title after the amount of explosions he's had. But he also doesn't feel like he deserves to say ANYTHING or set ANY boundaries, with anyone, which results in these explosions. Boundaries are not allowed because they could add stress to others! Feelings (anything that isn't "happy" or "helpful" or "positive" or "friendly") are not allowed, because they could add stress to others!

Add to this the fact that his parents are clearly fighting, regularly, and he is under a lot of self-imposed pressure to keep the peace.

You can tell from this collection of panels that this isn't the first time Mom and Dad have had an argument like this, which isn't resolved at all or filled with softened words to try and find an agreement. And by Mike's face, he's not exactly blindsided by his parents having an argument like this.

Plus, the "I know Dad is..." clearly indicates that Mike knows what's going on in the situation. It just puts a lot of pressure on him -- because if Mom and Dad split, if the fighting gets worse, the whole home life falls apart. He looks at that, and thinks "here is how I re-gain control over this: hide all feelings and problems." So he does, in an effort to help his mom & keep his family together.

The nightmares first started happening when Mike started to pull away from her -- we see in the flashback that the first one likely happened just before December, since it's a direct parallel to the chapter "On Our Own."

And the nightmares are specifically about Confrontation, and getting trapped & held down & assaulted, BUT they are ALSO about being abandoned by everyone who cares about her. It features Paulo reducing her to the "thrill of the chase" and wanting to "have [his] way with her," and Daisy responding with "that's all she is." All real things they have said within her hearing & never apologized for! Then Mike leaves, and Alejandro shows up.

In other shown iterations of the dream, it involves Lucy being alone and trapped, running down alleyways to try and escape, only to be cornered -- not by one shadow, but many:

Alejandro is the main shadow, but the others chasing her? There are three more shadows there. Toby isn't ever featured.

It's revealed in Third Degree Burn who those other shadows belong to:

Sue and Daisy and Paulo feature prominently. Mike is nowhere to be seen in these iterations.

In Confrontation, Lucy's perspective was that Mike was the ONLY person who would step in to defend her -- from physical threats AND cruel words.

He's the only one who steps in to say something when Daisy and Paulo are talking about how much Lucy sucks. Lucy overhears all of this.

And then, during the attack, Lucy steps up to defend everyone after taking a minute to assess the situation. She tries to get Daisy to run off, she tries to step in to defend everyone when everyone else has been knocked down -- and she does pretty okay for a minute. Then she gets pinned down, clawed up, and assaulted. And I want to note that she is the only kid in their group who is told that she is desirable by this absolute creep & the only kid who is touched like that. Immediately singled out as the pretty one, and immediately pushed in a different direction instead of just being knocked around.

And none of her friends defend her here. Sue, Daisy, and Paulo all just watch and cry during this. And yes, they're kids, but from Lucy's perspective they're not even trying. Paulo tried to step up to defend Sue, Sue tried to step up to defend Paulo, and everyone is trying to keep Daisy out of it. But then Lucy just gets WAILED on and touched inappropriately with no intervention.

And all of this sticks with her. We can see her continually remember their inaction and immediately disconnect from Sue in "It's All in the Mind," from Daisy in "Rain Check," and from Paulo in "Double Down":

In Confrontation, Mike was the only one who stepped up to defend her. Physically or emotionally. So when he steps out of the picture as her friend, she starts to flash back to this traumatic thing that happened to her -- only now she knows that no one is going to step in to help.

And then Mike makes it way, way worse, by using her as his quick and inconsequential rebound in "Eternal Flame." He dumps all of his feelings on her, he says something incredibly touching and romantic, he lets her kiss him, and then he immediately dumps her for the person he actually cares about. Lucy doesn't matter to him based on his actions.

it’s really clear to me that Lucy keeps having flashbacks to Confrontation and that it’s one of the major catalysts for pushing her friends away (aggressively, in the case of the second instance). 

in the first shot with Sue, there’s just a little bit of greying in the background -- but this is RIGHT after the nightmare flashback chapter & is closely followed by her bursting into angry tears when Daisy pushes the whole “guys adore you” thing. i assume that this memory is going through her brain as she looks off to the side:

it’s not really like Sue could have done anything in the chapter itself, and of all of the “crimes” that the kids committed towards Lucy, Sue was the lightest next to Mike. I don’t think Lucy expected her to stand up for her against Alej -- but I /do/ think that it was extremely hard for her to not have anyone come to support her and ask if she was okay afterward. Sue mentions in the original chapter that they “better get an A after all that trouble.” she originally jumped in to try and defend Mike, and stayed back as soon as Lucy stepped into the fray.

I think that Lucy just mentally logged Sue in her brain as a person who doesn’t actually care about comforting her -- she was supportive when Lucy was rejected by Mike, and is generally kind to Lucy, but seems to have her own priorities and distractions. so when Sue apologizes in It’s All In The Mind, Lucy immediately backs off and shuts the emotional stuff down as soon as she can. 

it feels similar with this interaction with Paulo. not only are her emotions already high after the recent interactions with Mike, as well as her conversation with Jordan and Augustus -- but she also is being grabbed by Paulo in the EXACT same way that she was grabbed by Alej in the alleyway. he’s physically holding her still by her shoulders when she’s already made it very clear that she does not want to be touched. and he’s got good intentions, but that doesn’t matter when you have PTSD and all of your buttons are being pushed. 

plus, the combo is probably bringing back memories of this:

Mike was the only one who stood up for her in that chapter, both to their friends and to Alej. and she clearly HEAVILY internalized this, to the point that she violently shoves everyone away when memories are brought up. she’s holding onto these memories with an iron grip. 

i think that’s one of the (many) reasons that she’s clinging so fiercely to Augustus; he also knows what it’s like to be hurt by Alej, and he took some pretty direct actions to protect her from the guy. 

and here he is, getting slapped in the face with exactly 0 of the consideration that he had given to Sandy. she didn’t tell him about her developing feelings; she didn’t tell him that someone had confessed feelings for her; she CONTINUED to tell Mike that she loved him even as she avoided him and kept him in the dark for months. it took him crying and yelling at her over the phone for her to confess!! there are signs about this all the way back to the time she visited and beyond.

and this development feels so, so narratively satisfying. he has been over here killing himself to live up to his vision of her, to be “good enough” for her, when she has been at least EMOTIONALLY cheating on him for months. he has driven away everyone important in his life to be faithful to her image when she has been doing the opposite! it’s so good!!!!! 

Lucy gets Paulo’s attention as well, but again, Daisy doesn’t really feel the same way about other girls who catch his eye. she doesn’t feel any animosity towards Rachel or Jasmine. she felt SOME animosity towards Tess, but it was only when she was explicitly being ignored by Paulo in favor of the other girl, and she didn’t hold it against Tess for very long. 

so it’s Lucy specifically. 

so..... hear me out. i’m thinking about how focused Daisy is on how pretty Lucy is specifically. im thinking about this tweet. im connecting the dots. 

basically, what im saying is, this is Daisy to Lucy: