by Ali Merci
Carmen felt her chest constrict at the way her name was thrown out of his mouth, like it’d burnt his tongue and left a foul taste behind.
“You know, in a twisted way, the two of you would actually be a perfect fit for each other.” He laughed, as if he was enjoying an inside joke that only he knew of. “But no, I think even San Román has better standards than that. Not even he could stoop this low.” Calculating blue eyes fell on Carmen once again, remorseless and ice cold. “If you’re thinking he’ll be able to save you the way he does the other weak, pathetic students here, you’re so wrong,” Hunter muttered, already bored with this one-sided conversation. “You can’t be saved, Carmen.”
“You loved her, didn’t, you?” Carmen asked, voice shaking, but determined to say something despite the shattering of her heart into a thousand shards.
The smirk fell from Hunter’s face, and his eyes grew even more hateful as they burnt holes into Carmen’s head.
But Carmen took advantage of his momentary speechlessness. “My… my mother,” she choked out, her breathing getting heavier and faster. “She took care of you, didn’t she? When your mum passed away? She was the surrogate mother for you, right?” Her hand tightened its grip on her bag, because everything around her was swimming, and she just needed something to stay grounded.
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
“Is that why you hate me so much?” Carmen asked, managing to keep her voice steady despite everything inside her being ripped apart inch by inch without even an atom of mercy. “You lost your birth mum and then you lost your aunt—my mum—who was the closest thing you had to a motherly figure? Because… because i-it was my fault, wasn’t it?”
Hunter pushed himself off the locker and stepped closer, bringing his face down to Carmen’s with such venom pouring out of his eyes and clenching his fists as if he wanted to pound the daylights out of everything that breathed. “Yes,” he spat in a low voice so that she was the only one who could hear him. “You killed her. You.” And then the cold smirk returned. “Spare San Román the efforts of saving you. That boy may like broken things, but you’re not broken, Carmen. You’re a goddamn abomination. And anyone brought into this world the way you were, are incapable of being loved.”
It’s not true not true not true not true not true.
You can’t cry, Carmen, don’t cry please don’t cry please please please.
She shook her head, but she no longer knew who she was trying to convince. “My dad does,” she whispered. “My dad loves me—” Her voice broke, her throat tightening as the lump there just grew bigger and more painful.
“What dad?” Hunter chuckled. “Your mum’s husband? Last time I checked, he’s not your biological father. My heart goes out to the poor guy. You’re not even his responsibility, and now you’ve all but turned into a burden that probably reminds him of what happened to his wife.”
And then Hunter was gone before she could even catch her breath, leaving a trail of the shards of her crushed and broken heart behind him as he walked further and further away.
•••
Carmen could hear the loud laughter and shouts in the hallway even though the door to the art room was closed.
Then again, it was still lunch and students didn’t particularly mind their behaviour all too much during this time. She knew she was supposed to be in the cafeteria as usual. That she should be seated at the table next to Joyce, along with Willa and Lottie as usual.
But Hunter had thrown a wrecking ball right at her chest, and she’d lost all appetite, choosing to seek refuge in her safe haven right here.
She had her art journal out, and her charcoal pencils, sketch pens, and crayons littered both her table and the vacant desk next to hers.
Carmen’s fingers put more pressure on the blue crayon she was currently using to colour in the upper half of the page as the sky on a spring morning. But as Hunter’s words kept replaying in her head like a broken record, her hand movements became harsher, more forceful, and the crayon snapped into two, breaking her stream of thoughts.
“Goddammit,” she cursed and grabbed the two halves of the crayon before throwing them at the wall.
The door to the classroom opened just as the pieces hit the wall and then fell to the floor, slowly rolling in the direction of the door and stopping only when they hit the intruder’s shoes.
Carmen’s creased forehead and deep frown instantly softened when her eyes landed on Asa who was looking at the broken crayon at his feet in confusion.
A few seconds later, his eyes slowly met hers.
“Someone’s having a bad day,” he stated, raising a brow.
“I’m fine,” she muttered, averting her eyes and staring at the half-completed entry in her art journal.
“I’m sure,” he said easily as he bent down to retrieve the pieces, but Carmen picked up on the subtle sarcasm in his tone.
“I am,” she insisted.
Asa walked towards her, dropping the two halves of the crayon on top of her journal before dragging a chair next to her and spinning it around, sitting on it with his chest leaning against the backrest and his hands folded on top of it.
“So, I noticed you were missing in the cafeteria.” He left the remark hanging, probably expecting her to tell him why she was skipping lunch.
“Not hungry.” She shrugged.
She wasn’t looking at him, still staring at her journal, but she could feel his eyes on her as they burned into the side of her face. She wondered if he was going to call her out on the bluff and push her for an explanation.
Instead Asa just sighed and placed his chin on top of his folded hands. “By the way, I ran into Willa.” He chuckled lightly. “We totally forgot about how we were supposed to hang out last week.”
Carmen looked up at him then, her eyes widening slightly as a guilty smile tugged at her mouth. “She wasn’t upset, was she?”
He shook his head. “No, she wasn’t. I think it was pretty obvious after the fight with Carson that I wasn’t going to make it. You could’ve gone with her, though.”
Carmen just shrugged half-heartedly in response. “Eh, wasn’t in the mood then.”
There was a few seconds of silence, and she knew what Asa was going to say right before he did.
“I’m guessing that had something to do with Hunter running into us?”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “He really knows how to rain on someone’s parade.”
This time Asa’s chuckle was humourless and had an edge to it. “Rain? He brings a whole goddamn hailstorm.”
Carmen shot him a look. “You really hate him,” she remarked.
“I do.” Asa’s tone was unapologetic. “But I’m also trying to let go of all the focus I used to direct towards him. All it does is bring me down.”
“That’s honestly good to hear.” She smiled softly. “Because nothing he says to you is true, and you don’t deserve to have it hanging over your head.”
“Take your own advice some time.”
Carmen froze, her smile slowly fading away. “What?”
Asa narrowed his eyes at her. “You know what. All those things he said to you the last time we were in this room together. None of that was true either. But you took it to heart, I know you did.”
She looked away from him and picked up one of her charcoal pencils, flipping the page of her journal to a fresh, blank one. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“And you’re upset right now, too,” he continued, disregarding her attempt to sweep her misery under the rug. “So, I’m just going to stop beating around the bush and ask you point blank if he’s the reason you’re holed up here during lunch.”
“It doesn’t matter, Asa.” She sighed heavily.
“It does to me,” he said, his voice suddenly quiet.
Her heartbeats were skyrocketing again so loud that she was amazed Asa himself couldn’t hear them.
“Because you feel like it’s your job,” she muttered, unsure if she wanted
to steer the conversation down this road but unable to shake off what Hunter had said last week when he’d run into them in this very classroom.
Asa lifted his chin from where it was resting on top of his hands and stared at her in perplexity. “What does that even mean? My ‘job’?”
Carmen pressed her lips tightly together, not at all certain about what the outcome was going to be, but she just needed to ask him. She had to know.
“Hunter,” she explained, “when he was here last week…he said…he called you the resident saviour and me damaged goods.”
“Carmen—”
“And then,” she cut him off. “Then he said that you like broken things.”
“I remember every single word he said, Carmen,” Asa said through gritted teeth, an unimpressed look on his face.
“Well, good.” She shifted her gaze away from him, looking down at her fingers instead. “Because I want to know if you’re here, skipping your own lunch, to check up on me because you actually care or... Or because like he said, I’m just another broken thing for you to patch up.” She drew in a long shaky breath, her fingers trembling as she clasped her hands together in a tight hold. “I want to know if you’re saying that me being upset right now matters to you because—”
“—because I love you,” Asa said, unblinking. Not a shred of hesitancy in his demeanour.
Carmen’s eyes were on his so fast, she didn’t know how her brain registered the sudden shifting of her sight so quickly. “What?” Her voice was so quiet, so terrified, that she wouldn’t have been surprised if Asa hadn’t heard her at all.
But he did. He heard her.
“I’m not here because I look at you like some stupid project, Carmen,” he told her seriously but there was no mistaking the way his voice shook and how his hands were gripping the headrest of the chair like it was his lifeline. “I’m not going to try and convince you that you’re not broken and that Hunter was wrong, because yes, you are broken.” He paused, hesitating, then slowly unclasped his hands and placed his palm on her wrist. “But so am I. So is Hunter himself. And Isla, and Willa, and all the other seven billion people.”
“And...” Carmen swallowed. “And that’s okay, right?” She tried to sound firm, because whenever she’d seen someone with a heart that wasn’t whole, she loved them regardless of it. But her words sounded more of a question than it did a statement.
“Of course, it is,” he murmured. “How else can the light get in?” His eyes fell on something near her journal and he nodded towards it. “Now that you’re certain I’m not asking because I think of you as something to repair, mind telling me why you’re so worked up that you broke the poor crayon into two?” His tone was back to being smooth, with that teasing edge to it.
And Carmen was grateful for that, because she didn’t have to deal with what he’d said regarding his feelings for her just yet.
Asa must have guessed the “I love you” threw her completely off balance, because he wasn’t pushing her about it, and Carmen felt her heart inflate with something so intense because of his ability to be so effortlessly selfless.
“I just had a confrontation with Hunter again,” she confessed. “And he’s not someone who’s afraid to kick you below the belt.”
He sighed. “I knew the guy had issues, but I thought he’d have some redeeming quality,” Asa muttered. “I mean, you’re his family. Regardless of how he treats me, he should be decent to you.”
Carmen let out a short laugh, but there was no mirth in it. “He hates me the most, Asa.”
There was a short silence before Asa spoke. “Why?”
“His mum and mine were sisters. Twins, in fact. But his died in a car crash when he was around three, and my mum filled in those shoes. I guess he grew really attached to her. But then she died, too, and he had to go through the same loss for the second time in his life.”
“And he hates you because you remind him of her?”
Carmen didn’t answer right away, because even though that was one of the reasons her presence agitated Hunter, his hatred was born from the blame he placed on her. But she wasn’t ready to have that conversation with Asa right now. She’d like to tell him some day, about how Hunter was right in accusing her of killing the woman who brought her into this world, but today was not that day.
“Yeah,” she answered, not meeting his eyes. “I guess I remind him of her.” She didn’t like lying to him, but her chest was constricting, and she just needed to let herself breathe for now.
The silence that enveloped them right then was peaceful, almost like it was consoling the two of them. Carmen let her soul float in the comfort that Asa somehow brought with him whenever he was with her. Her fingers traced the edges of her journal before she flipped back to the previous page. The sky was only half done, the left half of it bare because she’d snapped the crayon into two.
“Why’d you start a new drawing if you hadn’t completed this?” Asa asked, referring to when she’d turned to a fresh page and started sketching a cracked vase.
“You saw the blue crayon,” she muttered. “I have spare ones at home. Whole ones. I can’t use this when it’s broken into two.”
Her eyes followed Asa’s hand as they grabbed one of the broken halves and placed it in her palm before he wrapped his fingers around it. “It’s just broken, Carmen. It doesn’t mean it can’t still colour.”
He offered her a knowing smile as the meaning behind his words really began to sink in.
Lifting their joined hands, he pressed his lips against the back of her palm, speaking against her skin in a soft murmur. “And I would break every single crayon you have in your possession just to show you broken crayons can still create masterpieces as much as an unbroken one.”
41.
Don’t Let Me Walk Away
Asa felt his heart sink the tiniest bit when Carmen sighed and pulled her palm out of his grasp.
“How can you just say those things to me?” She sounded lost—truly lost—and it twisted his gut.
“What things?” he frowned, genuinely confused.
She closed her eyes, pulled in her bottom lip. Asa didn’t know if she was calming herself down or trying to formulate her thoughts into words.
“Things like what you just said. The whole metaphor regarding broken crayons creating masterpieces, as if—as if you actually believe that I can... That I—” She didn’t seem to know how to say what she wanted to say anymore but it finally dawned on Asa what the actual issue here was.
“That’s what this is about,” he mumbled to himself.
“What?”
“You’re not questioning the whole crayon metaphor,” he told her even while knowing that he was entering unpredictable territory. “You’re questioning what I just admitted about my feelings for you.”
“I...”
“I guess the shock of hearing me say it is wearing off and its only beginning to sink in, huh?” He laughed weakly, staring at a paint splatter on the floor that one of the art students must have caused.
“Asa—”
“It’s okay, Carmen,” he said gently. It hadn’t been planned; he’d never meant to say it. And he hated putting her on the spot like that.
But Asa was and always had been a heart-over-head guy, and he had let his emotions get a grip of his tongue when the three precious words had rolled off it and out his mouth like it was only natural for him to say so.
And maybe it was natural. Every way his senses responded to Carmen’s presence seemed like that was their sole purpose.
“I just…I don’t… I don’t think I—”
“I said it’s okay,” Asa cut in. “And I meant it. Besides, I should be the one apologising anyway. I shouldn’t have just said something like that without considering if you were ready or not to hear it.”
The silence that followed his words didn’t feel right; it wasn’t comfortable like the other wordless moments they’d shared. This one was different somehow, like there was a palpable amount
of tension simmering just beneath the surface.
It was evident in the way she wouldn’t meet his eyes, in the way Carmen’s mouth was slightly ajar, as if a part of her was battling against saying something and the other part was fighting back.
Asa didn’t particularly like it, but he wasn’t one to shy away from a confrontation, whatever the outcome may be.
“Can…can I say something?” Carmen finally spoke, her voice quiet and hesitant.
No. Asa wanted to say no.
“Sure,” he said easily.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” She swallowed audibly, the tremble in her voice unmistakable now. “But I don’t know how not to do that by saying what I want to say.”
I’d still be in love with you, Asa wanted to say. But something told him Carmen didn’t want to hear those words right now. Hell, he didn’t know if she ever wanted to hear him say that to her again.
“I’m a big boy.” His lips curved into a smile, but his chest was constricting and stomach coiling into painful knots. “I can take it.”
She offered him a small smile in return, as her eyes met his, seemingly buying his relaxed facade.
“It’s just that…when you say you love someone—” she looked away, “—it’s supposed to be about opening up. That kind of intimate confession should be about wearing your heart on your sleeve, baring your soul wide open for the other person to see…” Carmen’s fingers found her chain, and the fidgeting began again. “But…when you—when—” she sighed deeply, “—when you told me you loved me, it didn’t feel like you were opening up to me. It felt like you were dumping on me.” Her fingers tightened around her chain. “And there’s a difference between opening up and dumping something on someone.”
If the silence was uncomfortable before, it was downright suffocating now.
For a few seconds—but really long seconds—Asa couldn’t hear anything but his breathing faltering and the blood pounding in his ears.