by Ali Merci
“I can’t just turn over a new leaf overnight!” Hunter snapped, meeting Asa’s eyes once more.
“I know that,” Asa snapped back. “But you haven’t even started to show any signs that you want to turn over a new leaf!”
Hunter threw an incredulous look in Asa’s direction. “Are you fucking blind? Did you not see me there at Carmen’s that day? What do you think I was doing there?”
“I think that you were trying to get back somebody that means something to you,” Asa replied in a flat tone, cutting straight through the bullshit. “I think that you were making amends in a place where you were emotionally invested. Where there was something in it for you. Where you had something to gain, which was a place back in Carmen’s life.” Asa leant forward, placing his elbows on his knees and narrowing his eyes at Hunter.
“You want redemption so bad, Hunter? Do you really want to make amends? Then you start with doing right by the people who you have nothing to gain from. Do right by those who you have no personal ties to. Apologise to the ones who you’ve hurt just because of the fact that they exist. It needs to start with selfless choices, Hunter. Because what you’re doing with Carmen serves no one but you, and that’s not redeeming yourself. That’s just hiding behind the one person you know who doesn’t look at you like you’re a monster.”
There was a deafening pause in the semi-civil-semi-heated conversation between both boys, broken only when Hunter sighed heavily and seated himself next to Asa, keeping a good distance between them.
“Is that what you want me to do?” Hunter asked with an even voice, but there was an odd touch of gentleness to it that Asa had never heard before. Albeit it was very faint, it was there nonetheless. “You want me to apologise to you?”
There was another long pause, the tensed air not allowing Asa’s fists to unclench just yet.
“No,” Asa finally muttered. “Because it won’t make a difference to me anymore. And to be completely honest, I don’t think I can forgive you.” He cast a sideways glance at Hunter to find his eyes already on him. “You want to see me as a bad person for it, then go ahead. If it makes things easier for you to paint me as the bad guy, do it. But I’m not going to apologise for who I am. Not anymore.” Asa averted his gaze, staring straight ahead as he uttered the next words. “I don’t have a heart as big as Carmen’s, Hunter. I can’t forgive that easily.”
Another pause.
“What if all the others I apologise to never want to forgive me as well?” Hunter finally asked, voice quiet.
“That’s the beauty of redemption, Hunter.” Asa sighed. “You apologise because you’re letting the person you wronged know that you have it in you to acknowledge what you did to them, not because you’re expecting their forgiveness in return. I might not need the closure from you, but there might be others out there who do.”
Asa remained seated there for a few moments longer, before grabbing his bag and rising up from the bench, heading towards the door.
“Hey, Asa?” Hunter’s voice stopped him just as he was a few feet away from the door.
Asa stopped and looked at him over his shoulder. “Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
“For?”
The corners of Hunter’s lips twitched but he stubbornly kept them fixed in a thin line. “Taking a punch so that I wouldn’t get benched,” he said matter-of-factly. “You know, empathising.”
Asa offered him a curt nod, forcing himself not to smile at that last bit, and then turned back around, covering the distance towards the door. But just as his palm wrapped around the knob, Hunter called his name again.
“Asa, one more thing.”
He pulled the door open and stood there, tilting his head to the side so that Hunter would know he was listening.
“It won’t work.”
“What won’t work?” Asa asked, turning his face around completely to look at Hunter, a confused frown on his face.
“Your plan to cope with Carmen’s absence by hating her,” Hunter murmured, eyes drilling into Asa’s. “Trust me, I tried to do it too. I tried it for twelve years, in fact. Didn’t work out so well. I somehow managed to find my way back to her.” The corners of Hunter’s eyes softened ever so slightly. “And so will you.”
59.
Find My Way Back To You
Joyce was sitting crossed-legged on Carmen’s bed, flipping through the pages of a celebrity magazine she’d brought with her.
“Dude,” she said suddenly, not looking up from what she was reading. “Did you listen to Swift’s new album? Reputation?” Joyce grinned to herself and shook her head. “Incredible doesn’t even begin to describe it.”
Carmen frowned from where she was sorting out the clothes in her closet according to their colours.
“No,” she called over her shoulder. “She’s good, I guess, but I wouldn’t say I’m a fan. Besides, I’m very picky when it comes to music. I don’t listen to anything out of my comfort zone.”
Joyce looked up from the magazine with knitted brows. “What do you listen to?”
“The Script,” Carmen answered, placing a deep red turtleneck above a small pile of other red tops she had. “Mumford and Sons. Sometimes even Bastille.”
“Ah.” Joyce clicked her tongue. “I’ve listened to some of The Script but haven’t heard of the others. By the way, if you’re into that kind of music, I think you might like Birdy too.” She seemed to ponder over this for a little while. “Yup, definitely seems like your type.”
Carmen nodded and offered her friend a small smile. “Will check it out once I’m done sorting these clothes.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Joyce grinned and pushed her magazine aside before jumping off the bed and walking towards Carmen’s dressing table where her phone was. “I’ll just send whatever songs of hers I’ve already downloaded into my phone to yours.”
“Thanks.” Carmen’s smile widened.
“Yeah, no problem. Try listening to “Wings”, it’s my personal favourite from her original works. And as for her covers, you should try the ones she did for Passenger’s “Let Her Go” and Ed Sheeran’s “The A Team”. She did them better than the original singers, in my opinion.”
Carmen stopped whatever she was doing and shot Joyce an amused look. “You’re pretty enthusiastic about everything related to music, huh?”
Joyce grinned back at her and proceeded to tell Carmen about how she wanted to create her own YouTube channel one day and start doing covers of her own. In return, Carmen told Joyce about wanting to go to an art school.
The rest of the evening passed by with both girls making light conversation, talking about the little things, the ordinary things. And the smile never left Carmen’s face.
By the time Joyce left, night had already fallen, bringing along with it a heavy rain. Carmen stood by the front door for a few more minutes, relishing the cool wind against her face and the occasional spray of water that was sent her way.
Sighing softly, she stepped back and shut the door, heading towards the kitchen to make herself some coffee before she retreated up to her room.
Once she’d made it to her room with a steaming mug of coffee in one hand, Carmen reached for her phone on the dresser and clicked on one of the songs Joyce had sent to her;
…staring at the bottom of your glass, hoping one day you’ll make a dream last…
The low, rich voice of Birdy filled the room as Carmen moved around, clearing away any remaining clothes that she’d pulled out of her cupboard. It was when she started clearing away all the art supplies scattered on her desk that Carmen’s heart nearly stopped.
She had her mug to her lips, sipping on the warm liquid while her other hand tried to carry all the twenty or so paintbrushes, when her wrist knocked into a pouch and sent it over the edge of the table, letting a few crayons roll out of it.
Her eyes fell on the broken halves of a blue crayon.
Time stopped.
“It’s just broken, Carmen. It doesn’t me
an it can’t still colour.”
Carmen’s breathing came to an abrupt halt.
“And I would break every single crayon you had in your possession just to show you broken crayons can still create masterpieces as much as an unbroken one.”
There was a jolt in her chest, and it felt like everything inside Carmen just collapsed into a heap.
And then the paintbrushes in her hand were slipping past her shaking fingers, dropping to the floor of her bedroom with a loud clatter.
Carmen’s heart was pounding, pounding, pounding.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
But Birdy’s voice was somehow floating above the roaring in Carmen’s ears.
…you only need the sun when it starts to snow, only know you love him when you let him go…
Her feet stumbled back, hands trembling as the coffee spilt from her mug and the ceramic went crashing to the floor, shattering into the tiniest fragments as the sickening realisation slammed into Carmen again and again.
The entire world seemed to have stopped on its axis, the only sound being Carmen’s uneven breathing and Birdy’s soulful singing.
...and you let him go, and you let him go, and you let him go, and you let him go...
•••
As the days dragged on, Carmen found it increasingly harder to let her creative juices flow, the allure of art seeming to have lost that spark which had been burning brightly all throughout her life.
Right then, she was seated in the school’s art room, staring at the blank canvas in front of her, wondering which shade of green she wanted to use. Her eyes swept over the palette, wondering if there really was that much of a difference between colours. Green was still green, regardless of it being mint or jade. Who the hell cared about shades anyway? It just made painting more complicated a task than it needed to be.
Her eyes skimmed over the shades of blue. They were still just blue. To hell with baby and royal. Why did it matter?
Why had it ever mattered to her? Carmen couldn’t remember what all her fascination with colours and their various shades had been about before. It certainly didn’t make much sense to her now.
Her gaze slid over, landing on shades of red, of yellow, of br—
Of brown.
And suddenly, shades mattered.
Because that one right there—yes, the corner most one—it was the caramel-like tone of the apple of Asa’s cheeks, right where his skin was a bit lighter near his cheekbones. And the other shade of brown on the other corner was of Asa’s hair: a deep, rich colour that looked like grounded cinnamon.
Carmen’s eyes fell on another shade, one that was of Asa’s eyes, reminding her of coffee beans in their most exquisite form. Then another shade which reminded her of his eyes again, but when they were illuminated by the sunlight that sometimes fell on Asa’s face in the most perfect angle, making his eyes look like grounded coffee being blended into water, an almost liquidised gold.
And then Carmen’s hand was reaching for a brush, her hand flying as she splattered the blank canvas in front of her with all the pieces of Asa, the way those pieces seemed to still linger in every nook and cranny of her life, paint splatters that she could never erase.
And then Carmen remembered.
She remembered why colours mattered, why shades of them mattered; why art had always, always mattered.
Carmen remembered because Asa was art himself, the one masterpiece she never truly allowed herself to appreciate and cherish when it had been within her grasp, just waiting for her arms to reach out and take a hold of it.
Asa San Román was a thousand shades of brown and gold, and Carmen West had turned him grey.
“Carmen.” She heard a familiar voice from behind her, and she turned to see her art teacher standing there with a puzzled look. “What are you trying to paint?”
Carmen’s eyes flickered back to the indecipherable piece she’d just created. Then again, indecipherable to whom exactly? Beauty was always in the eyes of the beholder and the same notion applied to the interpretation of art too.
“I don’t know,” she murmured.
This seemed to amuse the teacher. “You always give me that answer when I ask you what the meaning behind your works are.”
Carmen couldn’t exactly name it, but something about that remark got to her. Maybe it was how her teacher still held onto a shred of hope that Carmen would one day offer a genuine response, or maybe it was the sudden realisation that she had been closing herself off to people even in these small ways.
So, when the teacher turned to begin walking away, Carmen spoke. “Warmth,” she said, making the teacher stop in her tracks and turn back around.
“Warmth?”
Carmen gestured to the half-dried painting in front of her. “It’s supposed to be warmth,” she said softly. “Like, if warmth had a colour or could be turned into art, this is what I believe it would look like.”
And if warmth was a person, Carmen knew what he looked like too.
Carmen had known warmth. Had known it in its purest form. And truth be told, she missed it.
She missed him.
“That’s…that’s actually pretty deep,” the teacher said, mouth lifting into an appreciative smile. “Quite the perceptive mind you’ve got there, Carmen.”
She just smiled in response, watching as the teacher walked away and headed towards another student, probably asking them what the story behind their painting was.
Asa’s and Carmen’s story couldn’t be narrated through one single painting though. No, a museum would be needed for that.
A museum where everything that hung on its walls were timeless and spoke of ancient souls and were simply magical, forever preserved for future generations to discover and marvel at.
But is that what Carmen wanted? To let them be nothing but a part of history? For her to watch him behind glass doors? Didn’t she want to be lacing her fingers through his instead? To stand beside him? To feel that certain warmth only he was capable of spreading through her?
No, Carmen decided. She didn’t want to watch him from behind glass doors. She didn’t want to marvel at him like a common stranger.
She wanted him. Not the way he made her feel—but him.
She wanted his beautiful mind, his heart of gold, his courageous soul—every crack, crevice and jagged edge of Asa’s entire being.
Carmen had to hit rock bottom to climb back up, and maybe it worked the same way with relationships too. Sometimes two people had to crash land before they could soar. A big maybe. And an even bigger sometimes.
But Asa had once told her that life always found a way and that she just needed to know where to look. Carmen was willing to take a leap of faith towards the possibility that the two of them together could just be the one in a million that found a way.
She wasn’t going to wait for life to find that way for her. She was going to put herself out there and pave a path with her own two hands and feet. Because the problem wasn’t that Asa and Carmen were the wrong fit. They’d been the perfect fit, just with horrible timing.
And Carmen wanted to believe that the right people with wrong timing could be lucky enough to find their way back to each other.
It was a belief she was ready to fight for. A belief she was ready to wage war against the whole universe for.
•••
Carmen was so not ready to wage that war. She was standing a few feet away from Asa, watching as he grabbed a book from his locker and stuffed it into his bag and all she could do was stare.
She wondered if it was an old classic or if he was just rereading the Harry Potter series all over again. And if it was the latter, she also wondered if he had to skip the death of that Black character, a scene that Asa had once mentioned was unbearable.
She almost started walking towards him right then, but caught herself before she could get any further. Every time her feet took one step forward, all that echoed through her head was a brokenhearted “I hate you”.
Part of
Carmen was hesitant because she didn’t know what to expect if she actually did approach Asa. She’d never been on the receiving end of his cold shoulder and wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about finding out what that’d be like. And the other, much smaller part of her, she wondered if perhaps he truly did hate her, not that she could ever blame him if he did. Or even worse—that he’d fallen out of love with her. Carmen didn’t think she’d be able to bear that.
“Go on. Speak to him,” a familiar voice said from beside Carmen and she tilted her head to find Wyatt looking at her, no traces of his usual happy-go-lucky nature.
Carmen swallowed, then looked away from him and towards Asa again. “He said he hates me,” she said in a small voice.
“I didn’t know he said that to you,” Wyatt muttered, looking at Asa too. “But it’s in Asa’s nature to feel every single emotion so deeply. So if he said he hates you, those words came from a place of so much pain.”
Carmen looked down at her feet, the merciless claws of guilt digging into her insides and tearing away at her.
“I’m not saying that to make you feel worse,” Wyatt told her. “I’m telling you that because if he was that hurt, then it’s because he loved you in equal measure. And all that love can’t have simply vanished into thin air. So go to him.”
“Do you...” Carmen hesitated, not feeling too comfortable about voicing her thoughts to someone she didn’t know well, but she reminded herself that this was good. That letting someone in on how she felt could actually help her right then. “Do you think he’d want to talk to me?”
Wyatt looked away from Asa and met Carmen’s eyes. “If you’re asking me if he’s going to go easy on you, then the answer is no. Forgiveness isn’t Asa’s greatest forte.”
Carmen sighed tiredly. “That I know.”