“I love you too, you know.” Carmen had said that, hadn’t she?
“I’m here, Asa. I’m here, with you, and I’m telling you that my heart is yours for the taking.” She’d said that, she had. Those were her words. Hers.
Carmen had to have meant them. You wouldn’t tell someone you loved them unless you meant it. That kind of cruelty wasn’t something Carmen West was capable of. No. Asa refused to believe that. Then why was she saying she wanted to take back what she’d said?
“Asa.” Carmen’s voice sounded like it was coming from behind a wall partition, like it was something familiar but foreign at the same time. Something Asa had known but no longer recognised.
Asa couldn’t respond. Everything was spinning. But everything was so still.
“Asa.” Her voice was louder this time, and he felt a tug at his wrist.
The reminder of the physical contact sliced through him and his hand that was caressing her hair fell limply to his side. Asa let go of her chin, feeling like his fingers were set on fire at the touch and tried pulling his hand from her grasp.
Carmen’s grip only grew more firm as Asa stepped back, his breath suddenly coming in harsh gasps. He put more force into his actions before managing to yank his arm back from her hold.
Disbelief. Hurt. Denial. And an ocean of emotions he’d never be able to name crashed over him in a single monstrous wave, causing him to stumble backwards.
“Asa?” Her voice was becoming clearer to him now, and he could detect the plea in it. “Asa, say something. Please.”
But all Asa was capable of in that moment was to shake his head slowly to himself and stare at her with confused, horrified eyes.
“I don’t care if you never say it back to me. When I tell you I love you, I say it because I do. Not because I’m expecting something in return.”
Asa had told her that seconds after he’d told her he was in love with her, right here in this very room.
He’d told her he never expected for her to say it back. So why did she when she never meant it?
“Asa, you need to unders—”
“I told you that I didn’t tell you I was in love with you just so that you could say it back someday.” The words were leaving Asa’s mouth, but he didn’t feel like he was the one currently occupying his body.
“I know,” Carmen said in a small voice.
“I told you that I just wanted you to know that you are loved,” he continued, but the voice didn’t belong to him. “You were the one who told me that you’ll say it back to me one day.”
Carmen’s expression crumpled, dissolving into one of fear and guilt. “I know,” she whispered, never taking her eyes off Asa.
“And even then, I never asked you when exactly you were planning on saying it back. I was content with the fact that you actually wanted to do so in the future.”
“Asa, I’m s—”
“Don’t,” he cut her off, shaking his head. “Don’t tell me you’re sorry. I’m sick of hearing you say those two words.” Asa’s hand fumbled around for his bag, fingers trembling. “Your words mean nothing to me,” he whispered, too stunned to speak any louder. “Not after this. Not anymore.”
“Asa,” she choked out. “Asa, please. Let me explain at least? I didn’t do it to hurt you, I didn’t. I’d found something that felt really good and I just didn’t want to lose it—”
“But you’ve lost me now,” Asa’s voice remained a whisper, his head swimming while everything else around him remained still and composed. “If you had never said it back, maybe it would’ve stung a little at first, but it would definitely have passed. I would’ve been okay. But this.” He kept shaking his head as his hand finally landed on his bag and held on to it as tight as humanly possible. “You—you told me. You told me you loved me. Why would you—why?”
Carmen’s eyes were pleading as they looked into his. “I know my words don’t mean anything to you anymore.” Her voice sounded broken. “But it wasn’t all a lie, Asa. I had strong feelings for you, I still do. It just wasn’t love yet. I lost myself in how good and real it felt that before I could fall in love with you, I fell in love with the fact that you loved me instead. That’s where the problem was: I couldn’t give you what someone only in love with you would be able to.”
Was that even the truth? Asa didn’t know—not anymore. He could no longer recognise the person standing in front of him. He wouldn’t stop shaking his head, not willing to listen, believe, digest that he was the only one in love this whole time.
Reality didn’t make sense anymore.
“Asa?” Carmen asked tentatively. “Please say something. Yell at me. Shout. Please. I’d take the yelling and the screaming, but don’t stay silent. Please.”
She wasn’t in love with me. She wasn’t in love with me. She wasn’t in love with me, Asa thought.
Carmen West wasn’t in love with him.
This was worse than unrequited love. This was the person you were irrevocably in love with telling you they loved you back and then ripping that sacredness away.
“Asa, just say anything—”
“I hate you,” he whispered.
Carmen recoiled, her entire body moving back as if she was physically pushed by an unseen force.
“Don’t say that.” She shook her head, a horrified expression on her face. “Please don’t say that to me.”
Asa walked backwards, the last few pieces of his heart drifting down to the floor where a hundred different feet would walk over
