chapter seven

"Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. I'm such an idiot!" Carla muttered, annoyed at herself for being - as you could probably already tell - a complete and utter idiot.

She bitterly berated herself, kicking a random stone as she walked through the village - invisible, of course.

After seeing that Mirabel has already left, Carla didn't waste any time in leaving the breakfast table, leaving behind her bewildered family.

Of course, it wasn't easy finding Mirabel in the busy morning streets of Encanto, especially when there was of people that needed help on her way. She couldn't just leave them to fend for themselves for her own selfish reasons!

By now, though, Carla was getting frustrated at her fruitless attempts in finding Mirabel. It was already nearing noon - hence lunch time - and she still couldn't find even a strand of Mirabel's hair unruly hair.

Letting out a sigh of resignation, Carla decided that maybe it would be best if she just waited until lunch to talk with Mirabel. And this time, she'll make sure to ask Mirabel before she could get away.

-

As Carla arrived back in the Casita for lunch that day, her face lit up upon seeing Mirabel already sitting at the dining table, eating her food with a thoughtful look on her face.

With that, Carla hurriedly grabbed her own plate of food - not even bothering to smuggle more on it like she usually would - before she went to sit on the thankfully, vacant seat beside Mirabel.

Carla internally groaned when she saw Dolores beat her into sitting on the not-so-vacant-anymore-seat beside Mirabel.

Grumbling, Carla sat on the seat next to Dolores, before glaring at the said girl.

"What?" Dolores asked, confused.

Carla didn't say anything but gave her hermana mayor one last withering stare before she turned to her prima who was on Dolores' other side.

"Hey, Mira." She called.

"Hm?" Mirabel looked up at her with a curious brow raised.

"Can I like, talk to you, after lunch?" Carla said, sounding somewhat sheepish.

Dolores, being the nosy older sister that she was - what? She couldn't help it! - had both eyebrows raised in curiosity.

"Yeah, sure." Mirabel shrugged before going back to eating her food with a  thoughtful look on her face.

Carla smiled to herself in slight triumph before she started happily digging into her own food. Although before long, she looked down at her already empty plate in confusion.

-

"So what did you want to talk about?" Mirabel asked as Carla led her into her room - which was still a white void.

"Uhm... well - oh! Careful, my laundry basket is there." Carla led her cousin away from the spot where she knew her currently invisible laundry basket was placed.

Her bed then suddenly appeared, startling Mirabel a bit.

"I still can't memorize where your stuff is despite how many times I've been here." Mirabel said as she sat on the edge of the bed while Carla jumped and plopped onto her bed face first.

"Well, that's not exactly your fault. I sometimes rearrange my room just to mess with Camilo whenever he comes into my room." Carla admitted giving Mirabel a smirk, shrugging.

Mirabel only rolled her eyes playfully. "Of course, you did."

"So..." Carla started as she sat up and crossed her legs, facing Mirabel.

"So...?" Mirabel asked after a couple of seconds of silence from Carla's part. She raised an eyebrow at seeing her prima being so fidgety. "Are you okay?"

"Hm? Oh yeah..." Carla shook her head, snapping out of her nervous stupor. "I actually wanted to ask what exactly you saw last night. Y'know? About the cracks?"

Mirabel sucked in a breath at that as she stared at Carla with wide eyes. "Why? Did you feel off last night too?" She asked eagerly.

"Well, no. I just wanted to know if what you said last night was really true and if Casita and our mirac - wait, what do you mean 'did I feel something off'?"

With that, Mirabel scooted closer to Carla as if she was about to tell her about a super important secret.

"I don't know if you've noticed, but I left breakfast early because Dolores said something about Luisa being nervous about something-"

"Oh, I've definitely noticed." Carla couldn't help but comment bitterly, earning a raised brow from Mirabel. She shook her head at her cousin, "Doesn't matter. Go on."

"Okay..." Mirabel said unsurely before, shaking her own head. "Anyways, so I went to follow her and well, she started singing about some personal stuff - honestly, I really think she needs a vacation-

"I agree."

"-before she told me that last night when I saw the cracks, she felt..." She paused, looking at Carla with worry in her eyes. "...weak."

This time, it was Carla's turn to suck in a breath. There was a heavy silence around the room before Carla gulped and decided to break it.

"So the magic's really disappearing?" She whispered, her hands starting to shake lightly, though it definitely didn't go unnoticed by Mirabel.

Mirabel looked sadly at her cousin, "I'm not really sure for now, but that's what I'm trying to find out."

That didn't really help Carla at all. All she could think about is that there's a possibility that the magic's disappearing and given that Luisa felt weak at some point on the night Mirabel claimed to have seen cracks on Casita's walls, it didn't seem to be going in her favor.

"Carla...? What wrong?" Mirabel asked worriedly, noticing that Carla's shaking seemed to have gotten worse.

In attempts to stop the shaking, Mirabel held onto Carla's hands and squeezed. That seemed to have snapped Carla out of her stupor.

"Mira, what if we really lost our miracle? Our magic? You've probably noticed by I'm reliant on my gift. What am I going to do if lose it?" Carla fretted, pulling her hands away from Mirabel's and gripping her hair.

"Hey, hey, calm down, Carla. I'm sure you'll be fine-"

"No I won't!" Carla bursts out, startling Mirabel.

"I won't be fine! Everyone else would be fine without their gifts! Everyone else can still go on with their daily lives without their gifts, but not me! Without my gift, I'm-..." Carla took a deep breath in before sighing and looking away from Mirabel. "I won't be able to do anything... I probably won't even be able to leave the house if I'm not invisible." She whispered.

Mirabel looked at her cousin in shock. She knew that Carla had social anxiety, she just didn't know to what . Now, she knew that she wasn't just afraid of other people or what they might think of her. She wasn't just afraid of social gatherings or having to do social interactions.

For the past 10 years, her and her family had tried so hard to help Carla with her problem, but all this time, they were just doing it the wrong way.

This wasn't just social anxiety anymore, this was worse.

The reason why all their efforts weren't doing anything, why they tried ever worked, was because Carla, , wasn't making it work.

The moment Carla first used her gift to help other people, the moment where she started to deeply rely in it, she unknowingly stopped any chances of curing her social anxiety from ever getting through to her.

She somehow made herself believe that she wouldn't be able to do anything without her gift and that caused her to unknowingly stop herself from growing.