“Yeah, ‘I don’t know’ isn’t good enough for me,” he muttered, the fight in him draining away; Asa was done. “You could have asked for time and I’d have handed it to you without blinking an eye, but ‘I don’t know’ tells me you haven’t even considered letting me in and that just means we are always going to crash and burn, Carmen.”
Asa spared her one last glance, committing every single minute detail to memory—those long midnight locks of hair his fingers were going to ache to get tangled in, the stormy eyes his own ones were going to beg to look into, the ivory-toned skin his lips were going to miss caressing, the slender curve of her waist his hands were not going to cradle again.
And then Asa’s feet were carrying him out of the kitchen, every single step he took twisting that jagged blade further into the cavity in his chest.
His fingers wrapped around the doorknob once he’d reached the front door and was just about to open it when he heard footsteps behind him.
“That’s it, then?” Carmen asked bitterly, her voice sounding more broken and lost than ever. “You’re just going to give up on us? Walk out on me? Because you don’t like Hunter?”
“I didn’t storm out when I saw Hunter here, Carmen,” he told her matter-of-factly, no longer having the energy to navigate the swirl of emotions inside him, sticking with the nonchalance instead. “I stayed. I asked you why it was that you suddenly needed him again. I gave you the chance to tell me what was happening, and you didn’t take it. This isn’t just about him—it’s about us. Yeah, it may have started out with me not being happy about seeing him here, but it also hit me how much I don’t really know you.”
He twisted the knob and pulled the door open, stepping out into the cold November morning—at least, he knew it was supposed to be cold—but Asa felt nothing in that moment, nothing but the emptiness in his rib cage where his heart used to dwell.
“So, no, I’m not walking away, Carmen,” he murmured, not turning around to look at her. “You’re not giving me a reason to stay, even after I asked you for one.”
And then he was walking past the porch where he’d kissed her breathless, where he’d murmured “Mi amor, mi cielo, mi sol” against the warmth of her skin, where he’d been foolish enough to believe they were a binary pair capable of giving parts of themselves to each other when it was obvious now that he was the only one who’d ever done the giving.
He’d poured parts of himself into her with every touch, every embrace, every kiss, every “I love you”, but she’d never trusted him with parts of herself. She’d never allowed herself to be vulnerable in his presence. And Asa was paying for it because all those bits he’d given away were no longer with him. He felt incomplete, knowing he could never patch himself back without those pieces.
He climbed into his truck, ignoring the empty passenger seat, the goddamn autumn leaves scattered all over the streets and trying not to think about the fact that while he was here, he’d left his heart back there. And that he was probably never getting it back.
53.
The Pain Death Leaves Behind
“It’s going to cost you Asa.”
Those had been Hunter’s words.
And what had Carmen done? She’d tossed them to the wind and went about with a blindfold hoping that her feet wouldn’t waver on the path she was walking on. The blindfold was removed now, and all that greeted Carmen was the sight of Asa on one path and herself on a completely different one.
Not parallel paths—no. Because parallel roads never met, did they?
Asa and Carmen had met though, had crossed paths. Had lingered around even. So, then what were they?
Intersecting lines? Roads that cut into each other at a certain point before heading in the opposite directions forever? The kind that never met again?
No, Carmen refused to believe that. She didn’t want to even entertain the thought that Asa had been nothing more than a passing cloud, a ship that had stayed in one harbour for too long and had to sail away now.
There was a museum in her head, with walls the shades of brown and gold, with seventeenth-century quotes engraved into the frames of every masterpiece he’d inspired her to make.
And Carmen didn’t know how to burn that down; she didn’t want to choke on the ashes of its remains.
But she then realised Asa hadn’t known about this museum, had he?
She’d never shown him. Never allowed him even the tiniest peek at those paintings she’d created using the sun’s glow from his eyes, the honey from his voice and the gold from his heart.
His heart that had opened its doors for her three months back, ever since that moment under that tree in the parking lot when he’d given her journal back. A heart that had done nothing but give and give and give without asking for anything in return.
His heart that, for the first time, had asked her for something in return just a moment ago—a tiny infinity ago. His heart that had asked for a piece of her heart in return.
And Carmen didn’t even give what it wanted, she wasn’t able to give Asa what he wanted.
They always spoke about how much courage was needed to take the leap and fall headfirst into love, but they never spoke of the rare kind of bravery it took to let someone love you back. A form of bravery that Carmen was beginning to realise she didn’t have.
She’d been the wings of
