“And what is wrong with people like that?” Asa asked quietly, looking down and pulling his brows together. “Why do people who are so detached set their eyes on people who like wearing their heart on their sleeves?”
“Because their exterior is hard. They let the world turn them cold, instead of fighting back to remain soft and warm. And people like you, who have fought back and keep fighting back every day, remind people like me of our weakness. Of our inability to be soft despite what the world throws at us.” Isla narrowed her eyes at him, the wheels in her head obviously spinning. “Asa, why are you asking this?”
“I... I want to understand,” he mumbled, shifting his gaze from the floor to her face.
Isla let the confusion on her face show. “Understand what?”
Asa’s mind flashed with snippets of the morning two days back, his chest constricting and squeezing the air out of his lungs at the memory.
“Hunter,” he replied.
Isla’s curious expression morphed into one of shock and then transformed into anger.
“What is wrong with you?” she hissed, throwing him a look of utter disbelief. “You just jumped out of the frying pan by getting out of that negative environment with me! And you want to head into the fire now?”
Asa sighed exasperatedly, rubbing a hand down his face. “I’m not going to become best buddies with him, Isla. I just need to understand—”
“What?” she snapped. “Understand what, Asa? Why he put you through what he put you through? So that, what? You can start the journey of forgiveness?” She laughed sardonically. “Right. And here I was, actually feeling proud that you learnt to let go of the things that made you unhappy. But no, you’re just trading one toxic person for another.”
“I need to know whether he has any good in him, Isla. The way I found good in you,” Asa muttered, feeling tired all of a sudden. He felt tired a lot these days.
“Why?” she asked, her tone pained. “You owe him nothing. Nothing! He doesn’t deserve to have you look for any redeeming qualities in him! Why do you do this to yourself again and again? Why can’t you just keep away all the hate and the bad?”
“Isla, I’m not asking because I want to forgive him or make room for him in my life...” Asa pressed his lips together, the skin on his forehead growing more creased by the second, “I just need to know how anybody could see anything redeemable in him. And considering both you and Hunter are basically two sides of the same coin, there’s no better person to ask.”
“You’re asking the wrong person, Asa,” she said softly, the angry scowl on her face fading. “Because it wasn’t me who saw anything redeemable in myself—I still don’t. It was you who saw the good in me, and I don’t know how you did it. The only person who can give you the answer you want is the one who stares back at you in the mirror.”
“Yeah.” He chuckled without mirth. “I’m a lost cause.”
“No.” She smiled, and for a fleeting moment, Asa saw the old Isla in there. “I’m a lost cause. Hunter’s a lost cause. Not you, Asa. You’re a compass. The only reason I didn’t start spiralling sooner was because you gave me some sense of direction.”
“But it wasn’t enough,” he concluded, sadness swimming in his eyes.
Isla shook her head slowly, swallowing and turning away. “That isn’t on you. You can’t force someone to change. They need to want that change for themselves, Asa.”
“Why don’t you want that change?”
Isla stared back with vacant eyes, and Asa realised he didn’t recognise the girl in front of him. Not anymore.
“I’m tired, Asa,” she eventually said, sliding down the headrest until she was lying on the bed. “Just tired.”
Asa sat there in the silence, watching as Isla grew drowsy and thinking back to Carmen’s words of her unwavering faith in Hunter.
Eventually he rose from the chair and walked towards her bed, pulling the sheets over her sleeping body. Asa thought about the last time he’d tucked her in, back when she’d stumbled drunk into his home.
He sighed and leant down, placing a light kiss to her forehead before standing to his full height and walking away.
Before he could move, however, Isla’s hand wrapped around his wrist, stopping him in his tracks.
Asa turned around to find her eyes half-open, struggling to fight sleep. “I’m sorry, Asa,” she mumbled, her eyes falling shut again. “I’m sorry for all the pain.”
His throat tightened, a prickling sensation behind his eyes as he tore his gaze away from Isla.
Asa had gotten the closure from her that he’d so desperately needed. Despite her flaws, Isla had come through for him on that. It didn’t erase all the times she’d broken his heart, the times she’d fallen off the wagon and dragged him down with her. But he could close this chapter of his life for good now. This was one place he didn’t have to visit anymore, one part of his past he no longer needed to look back on.
With one last glance towards her, Asa stepped out of the room and let the door close shut.
He no longer knew her, and she no longer knew him. And they were both better off this way.
•••
It had been four days since Carmen had heard from Asa.
Four days since she asked herself whether she wanted to climb out of that burning car.
Four days since she decided to stop cutting her fingers on the shards of their failed relationship in a futile attempt to salvage it.
Train wrecks weren’t salvaged. They were swept away, and they were
