by Ali Merci
“Willa,” she said.
It felt like a crime to describe everything that left Carmen’s mouth as “said”. It seemed too simple. Too ordinary. Too shallow for someone with as much depth as her.
Jesus, Asa thought wildly, I am losing my freaking mind.
“What about Willa?” He tried making out her eyes, the way those pools of silvery grey blended into the white of her eye. They looked almost like the first few dark clouds on a rainy day moving into the sky, floating in front of the white ones.
“I thought you liked her?” she said patiently. “And that you really needed my help to get to her.”
Did he like Willa? Asa didn’t think so. And he certainly didn’t deem it necessary to explain to this girl why he was doing what he was doing. He didn’t think he could put what he felt and why it drove him to do pretty stupid things into words.
Sometimes he’d think he was an absolute idiot for needing to wash away the disapproval in Willa’s eyes. But then he’d see Hunter and remember the prick’s words, resonating in his head. Over and over and over. Like a broken record.
Not just the words from a few days back and not just from Hunter but a lifetime worth of them—from a few classmates and even from strangers sometimes when he bumped into them at supermarkets or malls. Different people but with the same shunning message. It was always like that ever since Asa could remember. Freshman year, sophomore year, junior year. And this year too.
“Right,” he muttered, face blank. “And you’re just really eager to help me?”
“No.” She narrowed those eyes of hers. “I’m just really eager to have my journal back.”
Her journal. Broken moon. Starless sky. Frozen sun. Wilted flowers. Faceless girl.
Goddamn, her journal.
“Right,” he said.
“So, what is it that you want?”
Asa stared at her, frustrated beyond belief that he couldn’t figure her out. She was just… Ugh, she was just so Carmen. She spoke tonelessly, stared expressionlessly and walked aimlessly. It’s like she just existed. Nothing more, nothing less. Asa wanted to throw a godforsaken book at her face. Maybe that’d get a reaction out of her. Some reaction. Any reaction.
When he didn’t answer and just continued to stare at her like he was trying to peel away the skin from her head and peer inside to see how her mind worked, she sighed.
“You haven’t come up with anything yet?” She tugged at the chain around her neck. “Fine. How about you join our table for lunch today?” she suggested. “Under the pretence that we’re friends, you and I.”
Asa merely nodded, wondering where his energy had run off to. This was supposed to be him coming up with the ideas, with ways to get to Willa. But somehow, he wasn’t feeling the thrill of it all today.
He was somewhat grateful, though, that Carmen could pick up the pieces that he’d thrown around and string them together to form an actual plan while he seemed to be completely out of it.
“That sounds great,” he mumbled, finding this situation suddenly too awkward and just wanting to bolt out of there. “See you at lunch then.”
She just stood there, right in front of him, her head tilted to the side very slightly as if there was something she needed to look at past his flesh and bones. The way she stared at that space was like she was looking right through him and seeing things he didn’t want her to see.
“Bye, Asa,” she murmured, finally tearing her eyes away, and headed in the opposite direction.
13.
The Storm Inside
Carmen’s mind was a wreck.
Her muscles, nerves—everything—seemed to be coiled into a tight ball in a never-ending worry. Worry that Asa might not be half the decent person she thought he was and that he might have crossed the line and gone through her art journal.
Yes, Carmen was quite the observer, and she liked noticing the little things about the people she came across. It helped her a lot in deducing someone’s character even before she got to know them. That didn’t mean she was a profiler, though. She could be so wrong about a person as well, she knew that. And right now, it was grinding away at her insides.
Before, she could confidently say she liked Asa. As a person, that is. That she’d noticed his random acts of kindness, his strong stance against bullying and his fearlessness that radiated off him when he defended the bullied. Now, she didn’t seem so sure.
She didn’t appreciate the position he’d put her in. She didn’t like what he was doing to her—making her pace around her bedroom like a madwoman, wringing her hands together like she was her own lifeline because the one thing she truly depended on was in his hands. In Asa’s hands. A boy who she’d watched and ached to draw, but also a stranger to her.
Carmen might have given into him, wanting to get back her journal irrespective of the cost, but that didn’t mean she was going to let him take his sweet time with it. She would just have to speed up the process of Asa and Willa hitting it off together, leaving no room for him to have her journal any longer than necessary.
She could feel her senses buzzing with anticipation of lunch period today. Once it was over, she’d be that much closer to getting back the only thing capable of calming the storm that was causing havoc inside her.
•••
Before Carmen knew it, lunch had rolled around.
“Everything okay?” Lottie asked as they waited in the queue.
“Perfect.” Carmen beamed at her. “Why do you ask, Lottie?”
“Because you—you look…” Lottie furrowed her eyebrows and scrunched up her nose as she looked hard at Carmen, trying to put into words how she exactly looked right then. “I don’t know. It’s your cheeks, I think? They’re flushed? Something like that. I don’t know. Just—they just look alive. Like you’re pleased about something.”
A beat of silence passed, and something dawned on Lottie’s face. Like it only just occurred to her what she had just said.
“What?!” Lottie muttered to herself, looking absolutely flabbergasted. And then her accusatory eyes snapped to Carmen’s. “How do you keep doing that?”
Carmen blinked, taken aback. “Doing what?”
“That—that thing!” Lottie gestured wildly. “Always getting people to say the silliest things around you. Like saying stuff that literally runs through their head. It’s crazy.”
Carmen blushed right then. “I don’t know.” She tugged at her chain. There was another pause, and she decided to answer Lottie’s previous question. “I’m pleased because things feel like they’re falling into place today.”
“What things?” Lottie inquired.
The boy in front of Carmen finished paying for his lunch, and she stepped up to the front of the line. She offered a warm smile at the lunch lady to which the grumpy woman didn’t return.
“What do you want?” the lunch lady asked in a flat tone.
Carmen placed her order, the smile still on her face, unfazed by the woman’s hostility.
“Just things, Lottie,” she eventually said, after collecting her tray of food. “Just things.”
14.
Petty Best Friends
As soon as Asa stepped into his history class, his eyes automatically landed on the seats at the rightmost corner of the room, where he and Isla usually sat together. But Isla, being the petty little shit that she was, had some other girl sitting next to her.
In Asa’s chair.
Rolling his eyes at the inevitable scene his best friend was going to create, and bracing himself for it, he moved towards her. He knew she was aware that he’d approached their desk by the way her shoulders straightened, as if daring him to say anything.
“Hey, Isles.” He grinned, knowing it’d only infuriate her further. “I might be wrong, but you seem to be avoiding me as of late.”
“Joyce,” Isla said rather loudly, keeping her eyes fixed on a healthy eating magazine in her hand while she addressed the girl seated next to her. “Can you turn that down, please? That ca
wing sound is getting on my nerves.”
Asa spared a glance at who he concluded was Joyce—a girl with a purple streak on her dark hair —sitting uncomfortably next to Isla. The poor girl looked like she wanted the ground to swallow her whole.
For a fleeting second, he was reminded of Carmen when Willa had dragged her into one their arguments right after that AP Lit period. Despite her initial surprise, Carmen had remained calm and undisturbed by it. But this girl, Joyce, seemed to be scared out of her wits.
Asa guessed it wasn’t just guys that Isla intimidated.
“Hey, Joyce.” Asa flashed her one of his charming smiles and watched her cheeks grow a slight shade of pink. He knew what he was blessed with, and he wasn’t shy about using it to his advantage. “Do you mind taking your usual seat?” He cocked his head to the side for further effect, feeling a pathetic but undeniable flash of confidence when it seemed to be doing the trick. “Isla’s kind of my best pal. I usually sit with her.”
There was a huge snort from next to Joyce.
“Oh yeah, totally,” Isla said sarcastically, whipping her head towards Joyce. “Best pal, indeed. That is, if your definition of best pal is someone you are unnecessarily rude to without bothering to apologise to them for, like, forever.”
“Shut up, drama queen.” Asa snorted. “It literally happened just yesterday.”
“And apparently being a best pal also means having the liberty to belittle your uncalled-for behaviour on the basis that, in this so-called best pal’s words, it only happened yesterday,” she went on, still looking at Joyce.
Joyce looked like she was ready to cry.
“Isla, you’re scaring the girl.” He sighed.
Isla’s eyes narrowed, and she shoved her face into Joyce’s. “Is he right?” she demanded. “Am I scaring you?”
Joyce began to nod—to which Isla glared—and quickly began shaking her head instead.
“Joyce, why don’t you find another seat?” Asa suggested.
“You keep your ass glued to that chair, Missy.”
Joyce swallowed, eyes dashing between Isla and Asa like she was about to faint, and then, without any warning, she shot out of her chair and hurried away while clutching her bag in a death grip.
Isla’s mouth dropped open in utter disbelief, watching as Joyce seated herself on the furthest corner of the classroom, a good distance away from the two of them.
“Well, there goes my faith in humanity!” Isla scoffed, flipping her platinum blonde hair over her shoulder. She set her face into a stony expression, facing forward and not acknowledging Asa as he lowered himself into the vacant chair next to her.
“I wanted to apologise,” he said.
“By scaring my friend away?”
“Come on, Isla. We both know she was no friend. You definitely forced the poor thing to sit next to you.”
She snapped her head to the side, glaring at him with such venom in her eyes. “Is this your version of apologising?”
He grinned and threw an arm over her shoulders, pulling her head towards him and rubbing his knuckles against the top of her head.
“Let go of me. Ugh! Let me go, you asshole!” she growled, slapping at his arms and shoving him away with as much force as she could muster.
“What’re the magic words?” he teased in a singsong voice.
“Your bloody eyes,” she snapped, “once I’ve clawed them out!”
He clicked his tongue, messing her hair up further. “Wrong answer, chica.”
“Do not chica me you filthy pig, I will castrate you and—”
“Settle down, class,” the teacher’s voice boomed as he walked in, ten minutes late. “That goes for you guys too, Mr. San Román and Miss Martin. You wanna have a wrestling match, hit the gym after school.”
A few students snickered, but Asa only rolled his eyes good-naturedly and let go of Isla.
“Asshole,” she hissed under her breath, fixing her hair and straightening all the stray strands, her long fingers slipping into the silvery mane.
Asa noticed it wasn’t the darkest shade of indigo. Or as endless as the midnight sky. He shook the weird thought off.
“That still doesn’t sound like you saying you forgive me,” he said, keeping his voice low so that the teacher wouldn’t hear them.
“Well, duh. ‘I forgive you’ and ‘asshole’ don’t sound alike at all.”
Asa sighed, losing the grin and turning serious. “I’m really sorry though.” He nudged her side slightly. “I shouldn’t have snapped. It’s just…It wasn’t mine, that journal. And I was scared something was going to happen to it. Sorry.”
She stared at him, searching his face for a few seconds before losing her rigid posture and sighing in defeat. “Yeah, whatever,” she mumbled. And then she nudged him back, a small smile on her face.
“Why did you have Carmen’s journal, though?” she asked, disregarding history period like she always did.
“Long story.” He grinned. Then turned serious again. “Wait. You know her?”
Isla nodded. “Carmen’s that girl everybody knows exists, you know? The girl that’s always just…there, I guess. She’s pretty nice.”
“Hmm.” Asa thought of the eyes that reminded him of the calm before the storm, and hair that blended with the midnight sky. He saw flashes of a cracked moon, a frozen sun, and wilted flowers.
And Asa knew. Finally, he knew what he needed to do.
15.
Blondes & Brunettes
“So…” Asa shifted on his feet as he waited for Isla to gather her things. History period was over, and it was lunch now. “You spending lunch with me….or?”
“Why does it sound like you’re wishing I be somewhere else instead?”
Asa rubbed the back of his neck, feeling uneasy. “I was just wondering.” He shrugged. “Because you usually skip lunch to go and entertain yourself with whoever catches your eye.”
Isla smirked. “Speaking of boy toys, I haven’t gotten any recently.”
Asa shot her a deadpan look. “Must be an existential crisis. My heart bleeds for you.”
“Shut up, Ace.” She laughed. “What’s up, really?”
“Well.” He paused. “There’s this new girl—”
“Not the bitch who gives me the stink eye?”
“Um, her name’s Willa?” he asked tentatively.
“Aye, that’s the one.” Isla groaned as they walked out of the classroom together. “What do you want with her now? If you ask me, I truly believe she’s got some big diabolical plan against platinum blondes with blue eyes. “
“Seriously, Isles?”
“Don’t you hear about serial killers and them having a type? You can never say these days.”
“I have heard that one actually.” Asa chuckled. “They kill people who have a strong resemblance to the actual target of their hatred.”
“I wonder what my look-a-like did to her,” Isla mused.
“Maybe you remind her of the person who killed her pet chihuahua.”
Isla snorted loudly before breaking into laughter, and Asa joined in just as they stepped into the cafeteria.
“I’d ask you to string her along and crush her judgmental little heart, but we both know you’re too much of a softie to do that.”
Asa glanced sideways at Isla and saw the semi-hopeful look in her eyes.
He shook his head. “You know I can’t do that.” He smiled, but his voice was firm. “I won’t.”
She rolled her eyes in response. “Figured as much,” she muttered darkly. “Just would love to see someone put her in her goddamn place.”
Asa merely shrugged, feeling that small knot of uneasiness in his gut whenever Isla got this way. As much as he adored her and valued their friendship, he found it hard to digest how ruthless she could sometimes be.
“Come on.” He tugged her towards the lunch queue just as he saw a flash of midnight hair leave the line and float towards a table.
Broken moon. Frozen sun. Dead flowers.
He cleared his throat, hoping it’d clear his head, too.
“The crowd’s gone,” he said, moving forward as if he didn’t want to stand there and keep looking at the girl with hair the darkest shade of indigo and wonder what it’d feel like to run his fingers through those silky locks.
“I’m buying, by the way,” he said as they reached the counter.
Isla rolled her eyes. “You already apologised in class, you don’t have to —”
Asa shook his head, cutting her off. “This is kind of a plea, kind of an advance apology.”
Her brows rose warningly. “What for?”
“Since I’m too good of a friend to ditch you, I thought you’d like to tag along.”
“Tag along where?” Isla’s voice was cautious like she didn’t want to hear what he had to say.
“Oh, we’re spending lunch with Willa today.” Asa grinned, appearing as if he didn’t know this would undoubtedly piss his best friend off.
“Oh, hell no.” Isla took a step back.
“Woman up, Isles.”
“You can watch me woman the fuck up when I stick the carrot from my salad so far up that brunette’s —”
“Jesus, has anyone told you what a mouth you’ve got,” he muttered.
“I. Am. Not. Goi—”
“Carmen will be there,” he suggested hopefully.
Carmen, Carmen, Carmen. Goddammit, her name.
Isla threw him a dirty look. “What the heck am I supposed to do with her? She’s—she’s just Carmen.”
Asa didn’t know how anyone could call Carmen as just Carmen. God knew he couldn’t. She was the girl with the midnight hair who had thunderclouds in her eyes and separated herself into the half that was too cold for the sun and the half too dark for the moon.
Carmen wasn’t just Carmen.
Carmen was the girl who walked like she had no destination in mind, with her head tilted the slightest bit to the side as if she was perpetually questioning the purpose of everything her eyes landed on. She was the girl who spoke not to be heard but to listen, like that was her role in life. The girl who wore no expression and yet always had a smile on. Carmen wasn’t just Carmen.