Carmen ran her fingers through her hair, pushing away strands from her face and furrowing her eyebrows as she stared at her index finger drawing soft circles on Asa’s cheek. “But even after seeing someone, I knew I couldn’t just come to you. You probably needed time to cope, too, and it was only fair that I gave you that space to decide for yourself what you wanted. In the meantime, I figured I needed other relationships in my life too if I ever planned on making one work with you. I had to build other bridges, to put myself out there before I approached you. Otherwise, I would just become used to your presence and yours alone, and I didn’t want this to get toxic. I knew it wouldn’t be a healthy choice for me to continue keeping other people at bay and only making room for you in my life. I needed to make friends, try connecting further with acquaintances, try reconnecting with Dad.”
Carmen’s eyes flickered to Asa’s. “Does—does that make sense?” she asked in a somewhat timid voice. “I—I know I’m speaking too much, that I’m saying a lot. That I’m probably repeating the same point over and over but I want to know if you—”
Asa gently brushed his thumb along her lower lip with a small nod of his head. “Perfect sense,” he promised. “I’m glad you found it in you to finally make a stand and show priority towards your health. I wish things had transpired differently, that your path towards finding yourself and starting to heal all those old wounds didn’t have to include breaking my heart. You made a choice, a terrible one, with painful consequences. But you’ve always accepted me for who I am, always shown a genuine interest in where I come from, always been ready to remind me to love myself and that I’m worth more than I let myself believe. And I don’t want to be that person who forgets all the good that comes with knowing you, just because of one bad choice.”
He brushed away the hair from her forehead and placed a soft kiss there. “I don’t want to let that one choice you made define you for the rest of your life, Carmen. I don’t want to let it define my perspective of you. You’re so much more than a single choice made in a confused and lost state of mind.”
“Thank you,” she told him softly, sincerity swimming in her eyes, and for the first time since Asa had known her. He saw it. Asa saw those three words dancing around in those pools of raw emotions and unknown depths.
A part of him, however, was thankful when she didn’t utter them, because it had been a long night, and so much that had remained unsaid between them were out in the open now. The air around them was crackling with an overwhelming amount of feelings clashing into each other, setting off mini explosions. If she’d said the words now, he didn’t know if he’d be able to truly let himself believe them. It would’ve been a little too soon.
So he just buried his nose into the crook of her neck and breathed in the scent of damp earth, wind and rain that was still clinging to her hair and skin. Carmen was going to tell him she loved him one of these days, he knew that. And on that day, Asa would let himself believe her, before telling her still loved her back too.
For tonight, however, this was enough.
•••
Asa’s eyes landed on the clock next to Carmen’s bed, sitting on top of the small desk with a lamp right next to it. It read 01:00 A.M. in red neon lights. His gaze travelled back to where she was sound asleep in his arms, a single strand of dark hair resting across her face and her breathing steadier than it had been when she’d been reliving her childhood or lack thereof.
He wished he didn’t have to see the beaten-down and worn out part of her, wished he didn’t know it even existed. He wished it had never happened to her, that she didn’t have to go through what she went through. He thought he’d seen how ugly the world could be, thought he’d seen the worst of it—but it had still taken away her innocence and made her see things that she shouldn’t have had to.
But at the same time, wasn’t everything that had happened so far turned Carmen into the person he found himself falling in love with? Because despite everything, she refused to let the world turn her bones to steel, her heart to stone and her tongue to a sword.
Compassion, empathy—these came from places of suffering. And Carmen had seen suffering. That was what made her into the person she was today, the person Asa had loved and will probably continue to love for as long as time allowed.
He didn’t love the girl she could’ve been; he loved the girl that wanted to stick her hands out and dig her
