Could the shell of the person she was now shove her hands through all that damage and try dragging out the person she was underneath all that wreckage?
Perhaps the key to letting someone else in was allowing herself to let in the potential to be the person she could be. Because keeping out the pain and the loss and the devastation was not a method of easy breathing; it was holding her breath as that pressure in her chest just grew larger each day. Building walls was easy and it kept away all the hurt, but Carmen was beginning to realise it also kept away all the love.
And that had been Asa’s only crime—loving her when she didn’t know how to let that love get past her walls.
•••
Asa’s hand hesitated, hanging in mid-air, before he finally gave in and knocked on the door.
Mrs. Martin’s face greeted him, her mouth forming an exhausted smile as her eyes landed on him, recognition flickering through them.
“Asa.” She smiled warmly. “It’s been a while.”
Asa swallowed past the lump that had been lodged in his throat ever since two days ago, when he’d walked out of Carmen’s house.
“Hey, Sarah.” He smiled easily, nostalgia sweeping through him at the sight of someone who’d been like a second mother to him during his friendship with her daughter. “Is Isla home?”
“Isla?” she repeated, sounding almost sad. “Not Isles anymore, huh?”
Asa offered her a sad smile, a dull ache settling in his chest at the memory of the girl he’d once considered family. The loss didn’t hurt anymore, but there was a bittersweet throbbing that arose occasionally on moments such as these.
“I’m sorry for how things turned out,” Sarah Martin said, opening the door wider and allowing Asa to step in. “Sometimes I feel like you were the last piece of good she had in her life.”
“She didn’t want help, Sarah,” Asa murmured, his tone kind.
“I know, son.” She sighed. “And I don’t blame you for choosing yourself.” She shrugged, but her eyes looked tired, worn out.
Asa wondered what it must be like for her to have a daughter and yet not have her at the same time.
“Go ahead.” She motioned with her head towards the direction in which Isla’s room was. “You know where to find her.”
Asa shot her a small smile. “Thanks, Sarah.”
His knuckles rapped on the familiar door, before dragging his fingertips down the hard surface, a thousand different memories spent in this house flashing through his head.
It swung open, leaving Asa’s fingers touching air instead as his eyes met a pair of electric blue ones. They widened, shock passing through them before going back to being cold and detached.
“Can I come in?” he asked, shuffling on his feet uncomfortably.
Isla didn’t say anything and just went back in and dropped down on her bed. But she’d left her door open so Asa took that as permission to enter.
His eyes scanned the room, frowning when he noticed all her posters were taken down and empty beer bottles scattered on one corner of the wall next to her bed.
“You’ve been drinking,” he remarked, a sinking feeling in his stomach as his eyes flickered to Isla who was watching him silently.
“If you came here to judge—”
“No,” he quickly said, shaking his head. “No, of course not. That’s not why I’m here.”
“So why are you here, Asa?”
He pressed his lips together, his mind racing a hundred miles before he sighed heavily and sat himself down on the swivel chair across from her.
“You took down all your posters,” Asa commented, tilting his head to the side.
“Yeah, well, Arctic Monkeys no longer interest me,” she muttered, leaning her back against the headrest of the bed.
“What happened to all the photographs? The ones of all your cheerleader competitions?”
“I quit the squad.” She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Oh.” Asa looked away, the sinking feeling in his stomach becoming more prominent.
“Don’t.”
His eyes travelled towards her again. “What do you mean?”
“Stop worrying.” She sighed. “Stop feeling for me—I’m not your problem anymore.”
But Asa had loved Isla Martin once, thought of her as family even. Asa’s heart still loved the people he’d once loved, even if he no longer had room for them in his life. Even if he had to take the longer route just to avoid bumping into them and risk seeing familiarity and nostalgia in the eyes of someone who was now a stranger.
“You weren’t a problem,” he murmured. “Not at first. You were a friend then. My best friend.”
“Beginnings are always happy, Asa.”
Asa, not Ace.
He waited for the pain, but it didn’t come, and in a way, it made him feel at peace. He no longer needed her the way he used to before.
“The middle is supposed to be better,” he mused out loud.
“The middle is where everything starts going south.” Isla laughed humourlessly. “And when that happens, the end becomes inevitable, right?”
Asa’s forehead creased, looking at Isla with perplexity. “Where did we go wrong?”
“Not we,” she said quietly. “Me. You remained loyal ’till the end, until you decided enough was enough.”
“You’re not angry?”
Isla’s eyes met Asa’s, surprised flashing through them. “At you finally learning how to choose yourself? Of course not, Asa. I was frustrated it took you long enough to take a firm stand, but... but at the end of the day, all I did was take from you. And takers never know when to stop.”
“You said.” Asa hesitated, “You said I should’ve just learnt to have thicker skin and let things go…”
“And that should’ve been your first red flag,” she said, dropping her eyes to her hands as she picked at a few loose threads on her bedspread. “There isn’t anything wrong with you just because you can
