by Ali Merci
“You’re so fucking insecure and unsure of yourself you can’t even see that it’s Carmen you’re falling for. But if you think for even a second you deserve her, then you’re wrong.” She jabbed his chest with her forefinger, stabbing him over and over again with the dagger he’d handed to her on a silver platter when he’d claimed her as his best friend to love and cherish with all his heart.
His heart that she was shredding to pieces mercilessly right this moment.
He realised that he did deserve this no matter how much it hurt. Because how many times had he allowed her to rip to shreds the dignity of other students who pissed her off? How many times had he just watched on the side and done absolutely nothing just because she was his best friend in the whole goddamn world?
“You cling to me because I make you feel good in your own skin. You’re the one who’s always needed me, Asa,” she went on, not done with burning every single bridge of self-love he’d struggled to build over the years. Until there was nothing but the charred remains of it, ashes and smoke filling him up on the inside, choking him. Suffocating him. Constricting his lungs and burning his chest.
Until there was nothing left. Until he was nothing.
“Maybe in some twisted way in that mind of yours, I was an armour for whatever Hunter threw at you. Because you couldn’t just be a guy and let go of his remarks.”
Asa was a guy.
I am a guy, Asa thought. I need to have thick skin. I am a guy. I shouldn’t let harsh words build a home in my mind. I am a guy, and I’m supposed to be stronger. I am a guy, and guys don’t break.
“No, you had to be a crybaby about it,” she spat. “Guess what, Asa? There are other people with issues and insecurities, so run along and find someone to play house with. Because I’m sick of being the one for you to lean on.”
And then she walked away with her head held high and her shoulders straight, leaving his maimed and burnt heart lying on the dirty floors of the cafeteria.
As if his heart was always supposed to be walked over and trampled on.
27.
The Road to Self-Love
“Asa?” a familiar voice called softly from behind him, just as he was about to turn around.
Just then the bell also rang, the sound unforgiving to his ears just like how everything around Asa was right now. It sliced through the tensed air in the cafeteria, where everyone knew something had gone down between the two best friends but didn’t exactly know what it was about.
If there was anything Asa could appreciate in all this, it was probably the fact that Isla had kept her voice down the entire time instead of yelling it all at the top of her lungs. That would have been humiliating.
But somehow, he thought it was worse that Isla had kept the volume of her voice in check, because that meant she’d been in control. She’d been in control of her tongue and she’d decided to rip him apart anyway. How much more if her anger had fully erupted?
“Asa.”
It was Carmen’s voice now. He turned around to face her, and everything else faded into nothing when his eyes met Carmen’s.
She was looking at him—at him—like he was worth looking at, and for the first time, he questioned it. Maybe it was just his mind creating illusions. For all he knew, Carmen was probably just looking at him the way she’d look at anyone, and like Isla had said, his twisted mind was imagining it to mean something else.
His eyes registered Willa’s figure standing next to Carmen, and he realised it was probably her who called out his name the first time. But she didn’t have the power to break Asa out of his cloud of misery the way Carmen’s voice did. Willa called his name the way it was supposed to be called, but Carmen called him like she was thinking about a new masterpiece she was going to paint.
Maybe Asa was imagining that as well. There was probably nothing extraordinary about the way his name fell past Carmen’s lips. Maybe he was just looking for something in her that he wasn’t going to get, that he didn’t deserve.
He felt her take a step closer to him before he saw her do it, and that was the moment Asa knew he was in way over his head when it came to this girl with midnight hair.
“Asa,” she said softly, and one of her hands came to rest on his cheek.
Asa’s heart had stopped beating when Isla had spoken. His lungs had ceased to function, and he’d forgotten how to breathe. But Carmen’s fingertips were grazing his cheek like she was touching a fragile work of art that belonged in a museum.
He could breathe again. That was what Carmen always did to him. She reminded him to take a step back before taking everything in. To breathe.
And if he wasn’t careful, Asa could fall in love with her for it.
But Carmen was the girl with a touch of galaxies in her veins, who could turn everything she looked at and touched into magic. So who the hell was Asa to think he deserved to be on the receiving end of her attention let alone her kindness?
Hadn’t Isla told him just minutes ago that Carmen was the one he didn’t deserve?
Maybe that was why a part of him always went running after Willa, because deep inside, he knew the way she looked at him with disapproval and weariness was what he truly deserved.
If there was something he was worthy of, maybe it was that judgement. Maybe he was born to be condemned before given a fair trial, so what good was there in trying to fight it? So as much as he wanted to lean his face into Carmen’s palm and get lost into the universe she held in her eyes, he pulled away, stepping back and ignoring the flash of hurt in those pools of silvery grey he’d grown fond of.
He turned to Willa instead, who was looking at him in weariness and concern. There was no judgement in her hazel eyes for now, but he knew—like the others did—it’d return later. It always did.
And that was okay. He needed to learn to accept that. People will always look down on him. He only needed to be a guy and just toughen up and live with it. He needed to have a thicker skin and learn his place. Because even if Isla’s words were knives in his chest, they’d held an ounce of truth.
Maybe he was a coward, after all, just like she’d said. Maybe his issues with his identity and his skin held no significance and they were all in his head. A figment of his imagination. Something that had no place in the real world.
God, he was a mess. And he’d actually entertained the idea of letting Carmen nestle herself into his chaotic mind.
“Are you okay?” Willa asked and he knew instantly it was out of courtesy’s sake. He was sure he didn’t look okay.
But Carmen didn’t ask him that. And without having to ask her why, Asa already knew it was because Carmen didn’t have to. She didn’t have to ask him if he was okay because she knew he wasn’t.
“I’m perfect.” He grinned, squaring his shoulders and dusting his shredded heart under the rug, away from prying eyes.
Willa smiled back, though hesitantly, like she could tell he was lying but didn’t want to push him. And that was okay. Because guys didn’t talk about their issues. Guys were tough. Guys needed to have a bulletproof armour for a skin. He needed to learn to not let the words penetrate his flesh and engrave themselves into his bones.
Goddammit, Asa wanted to scream. He wanted to scream his lungs off so hard so all of the poisonous words Isla had poured in his veins would go out and never flow though his system again. But guys don’t scream. They’re supposed to take the hits and blows and dust it off and get back up like not even a falling skyscraper could hurt them.
“Well, then, shall we head to class?” Willa suggested, smiling up at him genuinely for the first time ever. She must have decided to go easy on him today. “We have AP Lit now, don’t we? All three of us?”
He felt Carmen’s eyes on his face, burning through his flesh and probably seeing his raw and bleeding heart despite his attempts to cover it up. A part of him believed that with her, he could scream. Maybe with Carmen, he didn’t need to wear the suit of armour.
But Asa would never know.
“Yeah,” he replied to Willa, not looking in the direction of the other girl, and no longer having an appetite for lunch “Yeah, we’re already running late, so let’s get going.”
•••
The day wasn’t rushing by as Asa wanted. It took its time, dragging out the minutes in an excruciatingly slow manner.
Asa had once heard someone say that time heals all wounds, but his cuts seemed to only grow wider and deeper as each hour passed, with his wandering mind taking pleasure in inflicting more self-torture by allowing salt to be poured on all his reopened wounds.
He’d honestly thought he was getting better—that maybe he was actually starting to be okay with himself, with where he came from, with who he was. He’d thought he was learning the art of loving oneself he’d so often hear people preach about. Asa could’ve sworn he was getting there.
But right now, he felt like he was back at square one. Like all his efforts, all his coaxing to himself and all the sweet nothings he’d whispered into his own skin was no longer significant. It no longer mattered because he’d been torn down to his very core. All those stitches and Band-Aids keeping his old wounds together had been ripped off his skin without warning. He now needed to stitch himself whole all over again.
Was this how it was like? Self-love?
Was it building up yourself brick by brick despite the cracks and the crevices and planting seeds in those dark places so that every time you cried, your tears will make flowers bloom and bring to life the parts you deemed ugly?
Was it watching someone who has stood by your side for so long take a sledgehammer and break down your walls of self-worth like it was just a house of cards built? Was it watching that same person violently pull your flowers out of those corners until there was no life there, and everything just remained dead?
Dead, dead, dead.
Asa didn’t think he had anything left in him to give away to bring those flowers back to life. He no longer knew how else to light up those ugly parts, to fill up those cracks and crevices. To think that he had honestly believed that he’d reached that light at the end of the tunnel.
But he was a guy, and guys don’t have cracks and crevices. No, they had abs and a killer smile and the ability to brush everything off.
At least, that’s what they’re supposed to be—what he was supposed to be.
•••
Asa didn’t see Isla for the rest of the day, but then again, he wasn’t looking for her either. He considered himself lucky that he didn’t have history that day. It was the one class he shared with her.
And as for Carmen, he avoided her rather successfully.
“Hey, Asa, wait up!” Willa called from behind as she picked up her pace to fall into step beside him.
“Hey,” he muttered, throwing her a quick glance over his shoulder just as she reached him, wanting to just get home now that school was done.
“You all right?” she asked, pulling her brows together.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because you were just on the receiving end of the Ice Queen’s wrath earlier. I doubt anyone would be okay after that.”
Asa clenched his jaw and stopped walking abruptly, causing Willa to stop as well. She looked up at him in surprise.
“Is this another attempt of yours to take a dig at her?” he asked with a stony face, feeling the last few threads of his patience come undone and dangle around aimlessly in the air.
“I’m just saying I’ve dealt with the likes of her before,” she replied cautiously, apparently taking into account Asa’s emotional state.
“Isla’s done nothing to you so far,” he snapped impatiently. “In fact, I don’t get why the two of you are always at each other’s throats.”
“I didn’t say it was Isla,” Willa said through gritted teeth, growing more agitated by the second. “I’ve just had the misfortune of having someone like her in my life, and I know how badly the words that leave their mouths can sting.” She narrowed her eyes at him and stepped forward. “Go on. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me there wasn’t some poor, unsuspecting, vulnerable girl that used to walk down these halls whom Isla had never done something horrible to.”
Asa swallowed, averting his eyes because of the guilt he felt clawing at the walls of his mind. An itch he could never get rid of.
“The girl’s name was Valerie,” he found himself saying, recalling a certain sophomore who was at the receiving end of Isla’s wrath one too many times. “She had to move away because she couldn’t take it anymore.”
“Yeah, I heard about that.” Willa snorted and looked away into the distance, her eyes hardening and her mouth twisting into a scowl. “And that’s exactly why I will always look at Isla like she’s trash because in my eyes she can be nothing else, Asa.”
Asa sighed, knowing this fight was a lost cause. “You don’t think she can redeem herself, I get that. But I do see the good in her, Willa. That’s where you and I don’t see eye to eye.”
Willa let out a low, hollow chuckle. “There’s no good in her,” she said, turning around to meet Asa’s eyes again. “There can’t be.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I was a Valerie once,” she whispered, her eyes fixated on the ground. “Back in my old school. The girl with braces and baby fat. I was that. And we had an ice queen there too.” Willa ran a hand under her eyes angrily, looking back up at Asa with fire in her hazel eyes. “And I had to move away to this town. To this school. Just like how—I’m sure—that girl Valerie must have done as well, packing up her life and moving somewhere else too. But I will never be that girl again. So if that means condemning Isla before she’s had a chance to have a go at me, or any other girl for that matter, then so be it. I don’t care how it makes me look; I vowed to put myself first and that is never changing.”
“But Willa.” Asa pulled his brows together, his forehead crinkling as he stared at the girl. “You don’t build yourself up by stepping on the shards of someone else’s remains. That’s not glory; you won’t feel better about yourself by putting somebody else down.”
Willa let out an aggravated noise, throwing her hands into the air in disbelief. “Are you deaf?” She was seething. “I basically just told you how my entire school life has been nothing but—”
Asa shook his head, cutting her off before she could ramble on. “I’m not talking about Isles.” When he used that affectionate nickname for her, something twisted in his gut. “I was talking about me.”
Willa blinked. All the frustration left her face, replaced by utter confusion. “I don’t understand.”
He offered her a small, sad smile. “When you first met me,” he reminded her, “did I deserve that treatment? Honestly?”
“I—”
“I can understand where you’re coming from,” he went on, “and I can see that this is all nothing but a defence mechanism. Maybe in a twisted way, your hatred towards Isla holds justification. But Willa, you’re so wrapped up in your loathing and all that anger that you don’t see Isla’s not the only one you’re condemning. And if you can’t see that, then you’re no different than her. In fact, the two of you could hit it off better than anyone else.” With a small shake of his head, he turned away and proceeded to exit the school.
Maybe the road to self-love was paved with baby steps—and maybe, just maybe, one of those tiny steps was acknowledging that you were treated in a way you weren’t supposed to be. Perhaps the bigger step would be letting that person know just like what Asa had done with Willa.
Perhaps Asa could be more, if he just freed his mind and body and soul from the shackles that he and he alone allowed people to imprison him with.
Perhaps.
28.
Just A Boy With Awestruck Eyes
Carmen’s head snapped up and her eyes landed on him, as if her senses were aware of his presence before she herself was.
How was that even possible? It couldn’t be considered normal for her to be so attuned to someone’
s state of being. It couldn’t. It shouldn’t.
It made her want to both run in the other direction when her eyes sought him out amongst a crowd, but also towards him. Towards Asa. Always towards Asa. She pushed herself off the tree she’d been leaning against as she waited for him to walk out of those school doors. He’d taken so long that she’d wondered if he had already left. But there he was now, his rich cinnamon hair glinting with a touch of copper gold-like as the setting sun’s rays bounced off his messy strands. And then, as if the universe itself had commanded it, his eyes found hers.
Amongst the crowd in the parking lot, through the tiny gaps separating the several bodies walking between them, their eyes had met. Everything else ceased to exist.
Carmen felt her lips part and her nose inhale air, like that tiny moment before she’d start to say something. But words failed her. There was nothing she could have said, because right then, one of the clouds moved away, allowing the sun to shine a little brighter, its rays hitting Asa’s eyes, rendering them into a degree too painfully beautiful to be put into words.
Carmen felt her lungs collapse into a heap inside her. What was breathing again? She was sure she’d perfected that particular art over the course of her life, but here was a boy with the sun’s glow in his eyes who made her forget all that.
So, she did the one thing that would calm the hurricane in her ribcage, the one thing that reminded her to breathe again. She called his name.
“Asa.” It left her mouth in an exhale, as if she’d finally managed to swim above the waves for much-needed air. Because that was what getting lost in Asa’s eyes was like. It constricted your chest and ribs for there was no possible way to understand such raw beauty completely. It both rendered one immobile and yet, that very same beauty itself also served as a reminder to live, to breathe.