Character Sketch

Carla is a 25 year-old black woman who takes on the temporary responsibility of looking out for her younger teenage cousin for the weekend. Living with her father again, and having gone through a recent and difficult break-up, she goes on a trip to visit her close guy friend, Brian. She seems to be at a kind of restless crossroads in her life. She lacks any real direction and seems to exude an apathetic outlook on her life for the time being.   
    Carla is trying to get away from her memories of her break-up, so she ventures out to see Brian. It’s an interesting visit with several possible outcomes, and even she doesn’t know exactly what the expectations of the visit will entail. While she considers Brian a friend, she packs sexy underwear just in case she wishes to pursue a more physical intimacy with him.
    The fact that Carla holds on to the possibility of a sexual encounter with Brian, even though she knows that he has a fiancé, explains a deeper dimension to their relationship. While they have been physical, it seems that Carla sees their relationship as deeper and more meaningful than pure sex and she interprets through the fact that they maintained intimacy regardless of current relationships Brian was in. 

Carla is happy to see Brian, but she clearly is hurt by the fact that his new relationship makes her feel less valuable. Her action of insulting marriage in front of his fiancé is her way of acting out an abandoned feeling that she wished to lose on this trip.
    Even though she no longer feels wanted by her previous boyfriend, Jay, her friend Brian seems to trigger the bigger issues that she’s trying to sort out in her life. She is at a crossroads and her life is changing in ways she hadn’t anticipated. Carla struggles with her own purpose and direction, and fails to find validation in this trip from Brian so she feels lost and confused. This is evident in the end of the story where there is a sudden end of the two of them driving, stopping, and then driving off again in no clear direction or purpose. Carla seems to understand that she needs to move on in her life, even if she’s not quite sure where it will take her.