by Ali Merci
“Hey,” Willa said lightly, nudging her elbow as they fell back a little from Lottie. “We should go bowling sometime. I haven’t checked out the arcade yet. Or the mall. Or any of the diners.” She laughed lightly.
Carmen’s face seemed to brighten at that, and despite Willa believing that Carmen was living in an ignorant bubble, she felt a sort of warmth at seeing her face light up like that.
“Oh, yes, we should do that.” Carmen nodded enthusiastically. “We should bring Asa along, he’d know—”
Willa choked on her spit and shot Carmen an incredulous look. “What on earth for?”
“Well, he’d be a better guide than me, and more fun too. Plus, I want this wonderful place to leave the best first impression on you when you take your first tour, and Asa would guarantee that.”
“But why Asa?” Willa asked, bewildered.
“Well, for one, he’s a friend,” Carmen paused, “…sort of. And because he’s full of energy and passion—don’t you see it in the way he speaks? If he loves this town and any particular landmarks, he’ll make you fall in love with it, too and that’s exactly the kind of first impression we want for you.” Carmen grinned, her long black hair almost shimmering under the dying rays of sunlight once they stepped out of the school building and stood in the parking lot.
“Yeah, I guess that does sound fun,” Willa responded, grinning ever so slightly at the idea.
“Right then.” Carmen clapped her hands, her chin grazing the top of her intertwined fingers. She offered a small, serene smile at Willa. “We’ll do it this weekend? Or Friday after school?”
“Friday sounds about good,” Willa said, anticipation already simmering in the pit of her stomach though she tried not showing it to Carmen.
Carmen would think it odd that she felt sort of thrilled at having Asa show her around whilst she’d been keen in making it abundantly clear that she couldn’t stand the sight of him. Willa didn’t want to come off as a hypocrite. But she knew whatever this was, whatever she felt that was starting to brew in her guts for Asa San Román, it had to stop. She had to extinguish that spark before it grew into flames. Boys like Asa weren’t the kind to think with their hearts. Willa knew she was worth more than being just another notch on a manwhore’s belt.
23.
A Crack in The Glass
Asa had just stepped out of the main doors of the school and was walking towards his beaten up red truck when he noticed a familiar chestnut head disappearing inside a sedan before the vehicle began driving away, leaving another familiar head—midnight black, this time—standing by herself on the sidewalk for a few seconds before she too began walking away.
“Carmen,” he called out, his voice carrying over to her easily in the silence of their surroundings. She turned her head around though her feet kept moving forward, only coming to a gradual stop once those piercing eyes took in Asa’s figure.
She blinked once, then smiled. “Asa.” His name tumbled out of her mouth like she was taking her very first breath. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he said back, momentarily forgetting why he’d called her name. What was it that made him forget? What was it about making contact with those eyes of hers that sent static through his head, wiping out anything that had been there? What was it about looking into those mini universes of grey that turned his conscious mind into a blank slate?
But her eyes were thunderclouds and Asa should’ve known anybody could get their minds sent into overdrive when lightning struck.
“Asa?” She was smiling as if letting him know she was used to his tendency of zoning off into space whenever he was trying to have a conversation with her.
He cleared his throat. “Yeah, sorry. Just, um, spaced out for a moment there.” He let out an awkward chuckle, bringing up one of his hands to massage the nape of his neck in a weak attempt to be doing something rather than looking like an utter fool.
“Okay.” She nodded.
“Okay?” he pulled his brows together, perplexed.
“Okay, I understand you spaced out,” she explained, smiling at him again.
“Right,” he said. “Right, of course.” His hand stilled in its movements against the back of his neck, and he brought it down slowly, curling his palm into a fist, wondering why the heck she was the easiest person to approach and yet the hardest to have an easy conversation with.
For God’s sake, Willa was new and he felt more at ease with her than this girl in front of him who went to the same school as him for years, and heaven knew how many classes he’d shared with her without his knowledge.
“It’s nice to talk to you, Asa, however short our conversations might be,” she spoke so smoothly, her voice as calm and steady as ever. “But I do really need to start walking home. So…”
And within the blink of an eye, he remembered.
“AH, YES!” he exclaimed, forgetting the volume of his voice and startling Carmen as her eyes widened at his outburst. “Sorry, but I just remembered what I was going to say when you mentioned walking back. Uh, I can drive you back, actually. That’s what I wanted to say. Or ask, rather. You know. If you wanted a ride. Like last time.”
Asa balled up his other palm into a fist too, wanting more than ever to just slam his head against the concrete. Did he not know how to speak without sounding like a malfunctioning record player? Why did he keep punctuating every few words with an awkward pause?
“Don’t you have detention though?”
Oh, lovely. She knew about that, too, Asa thought. “Finished serving my sentence last week. I’m a free man now.”
Carmen cracked a smile at that last bit he said, and despite wanting to return the smile, he didn’t know if he could because when he said Carmen cracked a smile—he meant that she cracked a smile. As in, her mouth was still pressed together in the right upper corner the way it would be in a closed-mouth smile, but her lips were slightly parted towards the leftmost corner of her mouth, giving a lopsided edge to her half-grin, the way a crack in a wall might look like: jagged, and crooked; starting from one end and widening as it stretched on.
Or maybe it wasn’t like a crack in the wall at all, because that would mean comparing Carmen’s half-smile half-grin to a flaw, and Asa couldn’t find a bone in his body that believed what his eyes were drinking in was a flaw.
No, not a crack in the wall. It was a crack in the glass—a crack in the glass of a window, to be more specific. And it didn’t matter if that window was bolted shut and had its opening screwed to the windowsill. It didn’t matter if the window had tinted glass to keep the light out—that crack was still there and through that crack, light from the outside filtered in.
And that was what watching Carmen with that crooked, jagged smile felt like. Like a flaw had the power to illuminate, if you just let it.
As if Asa’s skin could be the embodiment of the sun’s rays if he let it. As if his eyes could be reflections of a sunset if he just let it. As if everything that made him Asa San Román could be beautiful if he just let it.
Asa wondered then, for a split second, if this was what interacting with Carmen would always be like. If, when he wanted to speak to her and hold a conversation that would have taken a maximum of two minutes with any other person, he would end up analysing every sigh that escaped her lips, every blink of her eyes, and every flutter of her eyelashes.
He wondered if he’d always come up to her with the intention of offering her a ride and end up catching another glimpse into infinity instead. And despite the constant awkwardness, maybe Asa didn’t really mind it that much because even though he didn’t know exactly how many minutes and how many seconds had passed since he called out her name, Asa knew all that he’d asked her so far was if she wanted a ride and he’d spent the rest of that time marvelling at everything and anything that was simply Carmen West.
24.
Everything Beautiful About You
Asa backed out of the school’s parking lot, the engine of his truck coming to life with a soft groan de
spite its age, while Carmen sat comfortably on the passenger seat like it was made for her.
Carmen had a way of turning every place she graced her presence with into home, and it always amazed Asa. It made him want to look at her with awestruck eyes again, the way a kid would if they witnessed a shooting star for the very first time in their life.
Asa felt stupid—and giddy.
He’d just turned into the main road when he snuck another look at her from the corner of his eye and saw her open her journal on her lap. The corners of her mouth dropped into a frown at the red leaf taped right at the centre of a fresh page. He’d never seen those lips of hers tugged into something that wasn’t a smile. It didn’t feel right.
“What is it?” he asked, forcing his eyes to look bored and his tone to sound casual. Like he didn’t really give a damn, as if he didn’t want to stop the truck right then and there and turn her frown upside down.
“I’m good with paintbrushes and pencils, you know,” she said. And Asa wanted to tell her he did know. He did know because he’d accidentally seen that entry into her art journal of the frozen sun and the broken moon.
“I figured,” he replied, smiling slightly. “That’s why you’d have an art journal, right? Instead of a diary? Because you’re better with colours.”
His eyes were fixed on the road ahead of him, but something told him Carmen was smiling. Maybe it was the half-smile-half-grin thing she was doing. Maybe it was illuminating his worn-out truck, flooding the rickety old thing with light in all its dented areas.
“Right. Better at colours than words,” she emphasised.
“Is that the problem, then?” he asked, forehead creasing in thought. “You want to add some text into that too?”
She sat up straighter. Asa’s eyes followed her movements as she kicked off her faded shoes and brought up her bare feet on the passenger seat. She turned her body sideways to face him as she leaned her side into the seat, tucking her kneecaps under her chin. She really did make it look like that seat was made for her; as if it was only her body that could fit there and hers alone.
“Yeah, usually I just add in some quotes I’ve stored in memory for these purposes, ones that seem fitting to what I draw or paint…” she trailed off for a moment, hugging her knees and clasping her hands in front of them, “but, I don’t know. Nothing comes to mind for this one.”
“The leaf, you mean?”
“The very leaf, Asa.” She was grinning, he could tell without having to look.
“You don’t mean to say you’ve held on to that same one from last time?” he asked in a bewildered tone. But when he had to stop at a red light, he cast his eyes over at the journal laid open on the dashboard and the leaf that was taped to it had that same tear down its left side like the one that had fallen in her hair the first time he drove her home.
“Of course it is,” she replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “There’s a reason I took it with me and didn’t just chuck it away.” She let her hands fall apart and twisted her body towards the front again, sitting crossed-leg on the seat now. “I put the leaf in there as soon as I went home, but I’ve been trying to add some sort of quote or something and I can’t think of what.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Asa asked, genuinely confused and realising how odd a conversation this actually was. Were they actually talking about a goddamn leaf? What bothered him more was how amusing he truly found it— how simple and warm what she spoke about was while it contrasted immensely to her intensity and rawness.
“Um…” she trailed off before laughing lightly. “I actually don’t know?” She scrunched her nose as if trying to figure out herself why she was telling him any of this. “I don’t know. It’s just nice to talk to you.”
“Oh.” Asa blushed, forcing his eyes to stay on the road, while his bottom lip curled into his mouth in an attempt to bite down the idiotic smile that threatened to take over his face.
“Yes, I’ve actually wanted to talk to you for some time now,” she went on, and Asa felt his cheeks grow hotter. “Never really knew what to say though. I couldn’t very well just walk up to you and ask you how your day was going.”
He only grunted in reply, not daring to speak, not daring to stop biting down on his lip in case it stretched into a megawatt grin that he certainly didn’t want her to see. Why the heck did he want to grin anyway? He felt so ridiculous right now. It was ridiculous to even feel this ridiculous.
Oh God, he thought and mentally kicked himself. He was losing it.
He just wanted her to stop talking about him—of him. Of how she had wanted to strike a conversation with him and she had been thinking about it for a while. It was twisting Asa’s insides, and he didn’t like the feeling.
There was something undeniably terrifying of knowing that Carmen West, the girl who had a touch of galaxies in her veins, had been paying him attention long before he was even aware of it. As if Asa was something to marvel at even though she was a masterpiece herself.
“I think I actually have a quote,” he found himself saying, wanting to talk about something else. Anything else.
“Oh, what is it?” She leaned in a bit, a grin tugging at the corners of her lips just as Asa stopped the car in front of her house.
And he opened his mouth to respond because, yes, he did actually have this quote about how autumn was a season of the soul than of nature (or something along those lines, anyway) by Friedrich Nietzsche. But the moment he looked away from examining their surroundings as he instinctively did, and landed his gaze on her, the words got lost somewhere up in his throat.
Carmen was looking at him eagerly, her eyes alight with something he couldn’t name. Her lips were stretched into a smile, offering him a tiny peek into her white but slightly crooked teeth. A strand of her hair had fallen in front of her face, the tip of it resting against the hollow where both her collarbones met.
Asa had decided a long time back that Carmen tended to make him lose his mind, so he wasn’t too shocked when he lifted his hand and brushed that strand of hair away, his fingers sweeping over her collar and neck in a single stroke. Gently, hesitantly; the way an amateur artist would when holding a paintbrush for the first time.
“No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face,” he murmured, transfixed by everything that was Carmen. “It’s by John Donne,” he continued, losing himself a little more into the universe she held in her eyes, “From The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose. It was quite a good read.”
“Why are you whispering?” Carmen asked and Asa thought someone had set him on fire by the way his cheeks and neck was burning.
“Because I’m an idiot.” He sighed, leaning away and putting some distance between them. “You’re welcome for the quote, by the way.”
“Oh, yes, thank you.” She smiled sheepishly. “It’s a beautiful quote.”
Asa grunted in reply, his mind racing and blood pounding in his ears.
“I’m not really surprised that it came from you,” she said.
Asa swallowed, ignoring that jolt in his chest. What was worse was that she wasn’t even hitting on him, or trying to be smooth. She was just being Carmen, and he only admired her more for it.
“Technically, it didn’t come from me,” he muttered, scratching the back of his head. “I was just repeating someone else’s words…”
“…Who probably died centuries ago but your mind remembered it anyway.”
“Well, not—”
“Asa, will you please just stop trying to twist everything beautiful about you into something else?” she asked tiredly. “Can you, for once, just take my compliment and be happy with it?”
Asa’s mouth dropped open, and he could swear he was about to say something in response but, God help him, he couldn’t. What would he say to that? What could he say to that?
“Good boy.” She patted his cheek in the most patronising way possible, albeit with the cheekiest twinkle in her eyes, then
she pushed the door open, jumping out of the truck barefoot. She grabbed her art journal from the dashboard and tucked it into her bag, before leaning down and grabbing her pair of worn-out shoes.
“See you tomorrow then, Asa.” She told him over her shoulder as she walked towards the door of her house, her backpack clutched in one hand and shoes dangling in the other.
She hadn’t bothered closing the passenger door this time, too, but Asa’s mind was a million worlds away to care.
25.
Bruised Knuckles & Bleeding Hearts
“Hey, Dad?” Carmen asked through a mouthful of slightly burnt waffles, tapping her fork on the edge of her plate. “Can I—”
“Swallow first,” her dad said with slight disgust. “Don’t speak with food in your mouth like that.”
She nodded vigorously in half apology and half agreement, before gulping down the food hastily and speaking again. “Tomorrow, after school, can I not come home directly? This girl who just transferred in our school recently needs a tour.”
He raised a brow at Carmen. “And you volunteered? Being a tour guide doesn’t sound like you.”
Carmen only shrugged in response. “Somebody else will be the guide. I’m just tagging along, playing the role of the Good Samaritan and welcoming her here with open arms.” She grinned at the end, making her father chuckle and shake his head.
“Yeah okay, go ahead and have fun,” he replied, smiling slightly. “Don’t stay out too late, though.”
“Oh, don’t worry, we’d probably be back by ten, maybe even before that.”
“That’s good.” Her father nodded, staring at her for a while with fondness before his eyes recognised his wife’s features in his daughter’s and he had to turn away.
Carmen saw his heart break one more time, the way he had to avert his eyes from looking at his own daughter for a time longer than he could take. In that moment, all she wanted was to stop being a living reminder of the dead woman.