As Cara led Holly out of the store, she wondered if it was really right of them to go on without Kiara. The girl had said to leave, but was it proper etiquette to go over to the fast food place she saw her running off to, just to double check? Cara guessed that proper etiquette wasn't really a thing out here. She was lucky that no one in the basement really fell into the real homeless stereotype, or at least what she thought to be the real standard for homeless people. None of them were so messed up on drugs that they were flailing with seizures every night, or trying to stab someone else during a drug induced-psychotic episode. She sometimes did worry about it, but she knew that she didn't really have to protect her belongings down there that much. While Brooklyn had made it clear that her things had been taken within days of her leaving, she didn't think that anyone would steal from her when she was still living down there. They were all human beings, and maybe it spoke to Cara's true personality, but she didn't think the same of the bums she would pass on the streets. She remembered being a young girl, maybe eight or nine years old, on her way to see the New York City Ballet's Swan Lake performance. Their driver had to let them out on the side street adjacent to the theater that day because of the high traffic in front, and during that short two minute walk, they passed by a scruffy looking man holding up a sign saying that he was an army veteran who had lost everything. She asked her father about it later that night, and he told her that all of those people lied to get free money. That they were bad people who were too lazy to work on their own, so they wanted to pretend to be sick or struggling to get free money without having to do anything on their own. One would think that now, after what she experienced over the past year, that her view on that would be different, but it wasn't really. The people she lived with just weren't the same as those people. Even if it was possible that ten or twenty years down the line, they would be in that exact position, Cara wouldn't acknowledge or believe it. They were just... different.
She officially decided against reaching out to Kiara when they found Brooklyn waiting outside. "Um, a cab would be fine," Cara answered, but it seemed like Brooklyn's question had been a rhetorical one, because the brunette was already turning away to hail a cab for them. She knew Brooklyn, and she knew that she was the stupid one if she expected the girl to suddenly be warm and fuzzy just because she was back (especially since she had seen Brooke just a week ago), but she wished she would be a little nicer today. Cara was still readjusting to all of this, and it would have been just a tad helpful if Brooklyn would at least try to be a nice person. She didn't even expect her to venture outside of her nature. She understood that Brooklyn was more closed off than most people, and that she seemed to react aggressively to keep people at bay. That was good and well, Cara didn't expect to change that, but at the same time, she knew that Brooklyn could at least try to be better. Try to hold her tongue more often, or try to at least consider other people's feelings. Cara could tolerate it because she liked the fun Brooke that she got to know when she realized that Brooklyn could drink and let loose, but this Brooklyn was hard for even her to take. That was especially true when Holly was with them, because not only did Holly sometimes make Brooklyn more irate, but Cara also tried not to feed into Brooklyn's actions when Holly was around. She didn't like to return Brooklyn's attitude or sarcastic and witty remarks with the girl who had a tendency to mimic people, standing right there.
With a quiet sigh, Cara took Holly by the hand and led her to the cab. "There's a Panera Bread up the block from the store. Do you want to eat there after?" she asked as they slid into the back with Brooklyn, who then started speaking to her. "Okay, well I guess I'll just see what they have when I get there. I don't want--" She was getting ready to say that she didn't want to use a mattress that someone else, especially someone she didn't know, had been sleeping on, when she checked herself. "I don't want to take it from him if he's been using it. I'm sure they have those thin ones that I can use temporarily, and then maybe your big, strong boyfriend can help me carry a heavier one home this weekend," she continued, with the last sentence being more playful.