But Carmen was tired. And she was beginning to think that no amount of reasonable argument was going to change the mind-set of people like Willa. Sometimes society drilled the stereotypes so deep inside one’s head that there was just no other way for them to look at life except through a narrow-minded perspective.
She would know. It was society and its delusional sense to exercise a “right” to slap a label on anyone, that tore apart her life into shreds.
Carmen simply offered the two of them a smile and a wave, then walked out of the classroom towards the main doors of the school.
She’d made a promise to value kindness above everything, and she’d honour that promise ‘till her last breath. And so she defended Isla, because God knew the girl didn’t deserve being looked down on like a piece of gum stuck under someone’s shoes.
No. That was Carmen. She was the one who was supposed to be looked down on. She was the one who’d ruined lives with her own. And Lord knew Carmen didn’t deserve even an atom of the kindness she’d shown to anyone throughout her entire life.
•••
“Carmen.”
She stopped in her tracks across the parking lot and looked over her shoulder to see Asa jogging towards her.
God, he made her name sound beautiful, like there was a constellation waiting to be named after her. Or maybe his voice was just music to her ears, and it beautified every word that left his mouth.
“Yes, Asa?” Did she make his name sound as beautiful too? Did the way “Asa” fall past her lips let him know she saw him in shades of brown and gold?
Asa slowed down his pace as he drew closer, casually slipping his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He kept his thumbs out, using them to draw circles on the dark grey material of his pants.
“Hey,” he breathed. Why did he breathe out the word?
“Hi.” She didn’t know how she sounded.
“Um.” He stopped. “I…I guess I wanted to say thanks?” He looked away, his thumbs now tapping on the outside of his pockets. His eyes landed back on hers. “Yeah, I wanted to say thanks.”
Carmen could’ve smiled and said it was her pleasure. But it wasn’t her pleasure, was it? She was doing it at the expense of her means to get her emotions out. At the expense of her stress reliever. Her journal.
“There’s really no reason to thank me,” she said. “I did it because I had to.”
He looked away, and guilt flickered in his eyes.
“No, I wasn’t thanking you for that.” He sighed. “Not for having me over at your lunch table.”
Carmen adjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder. “Okay?” She tilted her head, her long hair slanting to the side with the motion. “What else did you want to thank me for, then?”
Asa smiled at her then. At Carmen.
Smiled.
How much that word simplified the gesture Asa offered her. No, his lips curved up at the very corners, lifting the slant in his cheekbones and pooling his eyes with warmth.
That’s what warm coffee should look like, Carmen thought to herself.
“Thank you for sticking up for Isles,” he said. “I think the whole school, except for me and her cheer squad, has a very strongly misguided idea of who she is.”
Carmen’s lips parted, and something close to a sigh but without any sound, left her mouth. Or maybe it was just that she couldn’t breathe in that second. She was always nice to people; she always defended the misjudged. This was the first time someone watched from the side-lines and picked up on it. And definitely the first time that someone had thought she needed to be thanked for it.
It felt…oddly nice.
“Carmen?”
She wondered if he thought of stars when he called her name, because Carmen didn’t know how else to explain the way her name felt special when he uttered it.
“Yes, Asa?”
“Say something?” He cracked a smile, but his eyes looked guarded.
And so she smiled, wiping away the hesitation in his eyes.
“Not the whole school, I hope,” she said softly. “I’m certain there are a lot more who see past the label she’s been given. They just haven’t spoken up yet.”
“You did,” he said and God, did Carmen’s breathing falter.
“Yes.” She averted her gaze. “Yes, I did.”
“Kind of puts you in a whole new light,” he muttered, scratching the back of his head. “Or rather, I’m just seeing you properly only now.”
Asa’s words were paintings Carmen could never create; a drawing she’d never be able to sketch. And yet—yet, she knew in her bones his speech was that: art.
“I’m not following,” she told him.
“Here.” He pulled his hands out of his pocket, using one to hold his backpack, and the other to dig inside for something. Then he pulled out the one thing that made Carmen’s hands throb and ache with longing.
He was holding her art journal.
And then he stretched his hand out towards her. The hand that was holding her journal.
“I don’t understand…” Her voice was quiet, but she reached out and let her fingers touch the familiar hard cover of the book anyway. And God did it feel like coming home again.
Her heart thumping inside her chest, she gingerly curled her fingers around the spiral edge and tugged, wondering if it was a cruel joke and Asa was going to pull it away any moment now.
But he didn’t. Asa didn’t. And Carmen could breathe again.
“I should never have done that to you.” He sounded ashamed, and Carmen let him feel that way. For now, at least. She needed to know he felt guilty. She needed him to know how much the journal meant to her and just
