“No, you shouldn’t have,” she said to him. Her eyes dropped to the journal, her fingers caressing the surface like a long-lost friend. She lifted her gaze back to him. “But this…this I did not expect. I didn’t…”
He cocked his head to the side, eyebrows furrowed as he waited for her to get the words out.
“This is a rare act of kindness,” she finally murmured. “I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”
“Like I said, it didn’t feel right. I couldn’t go about leisurely chatting up Willa when your journal felt like a ton in my bag.” He chuckled, easing the intense atmosphere that had suddenly wrapped around them. “And speaking about rare acts of kindness… you deserve it. Especially after Isla. Haven’t you heard of the saying what goes around comes around?” He grinned, and it looked like the sun had shone down on Carmen.
“I have heard of that saying,” she eventually said, her chest constricting. That saying had defined Carmen’s life, and would continue to do so. Because the pain that she’d inflicted, the anguish that she’d sent around, was going to come back around to Carmen. It was going to make its way back to her.
And she was just floating, existing, until that wave hits and she’s swept away in the tide forever.
17.
A Touch of Galaxies in Her Veins
When Asa’s eyes followed Carmen’s hands gripping her journal with the air of a mother finally finding her child, he felt guilt claw at his insides.
He’d been rash and had acted on an impulse when he had struck the unfair bargain with her. Now, seeing her reaction and realising how personal an object he’d been keeping away from her, he wished more than ever that he wouldn’t always act in the heat of the moment and instead would actually think things through. His mother would be so ashamed of him.
“I am sorry, Carmen,” he said again, resisting the urge to yank his own hair.
She met his eyes. They weren’t exceptionally pretty like Willa’s hazel ones, but, God, did they send lightning bolts his way.
“I know.” She smiled softly. “Apology accepted.”
He nodded, smiling back at her, before it began to grow awkward again.
“Right.” He paused, looked away, and then back at her. “Guess I better get going now.”
“Bye, Asa.” She lifted her hand in a small wave and dropped it back to her side, but she didn’t move right away. Just like last time, she looked at him wordlessly for a mere heartbeat longer—but what felt like an infinity to him.
An infinity in which he saw a pale moon with a crack splitting it into two, a magnificent sun frosting over and sucking the life out of flowers, a girl with no face but long, flowing hair as dark as the starless sky.
That was the thing about Carmen, he then realised. She was a masterpiece who made other masterpieces and went about with her head tilted to the side like she was painting a whole new one in her mind.
And Asa wanted to take a peek inside. To see if her mind was truly as beautiful as her name. Carmen, Carmen, Carmen. It must be so colourful inside her head, while his was just a blank slate.
“How are you leaving?” the words left his mouth as soon as a particularly strong gust of wind blew past them. It sent a shiver down his back, and he wondered if she was going to walk in this chilly weather.
“By foot,” she answered, the ghost of a smile on her face. Asa had come to realise that Carmen’s lips always carried a trace of a smile, like she was just waiting for the moment when she would have to offer one to somebody. As if it was her god-given duty to smile at any breathing, living thing that walked past her.
He wondered then, if more than being colourful, whether her mind was a very sad place instead. A place where none of the smiles she sent everyone’s way existed.
It made him want to send a smile her way every second of every day.
“It’s cold,” he pointed out with a slight frown. And then she did something that set off a grenade in his chest.
She laughed.
No, wait. Not a grenade. Because the feeling in his chest was something light and fluttery, zooming through his chest and his heart in a single strike. Too light to be a grenade, he thought, but also too peaceful to be a firecracker.
He thought of a shooting star then. Just passing through the midnight sky in a single strike, leaving a trail of glowing light in its wake.
He wondered then, if Carmen had a touch of galaxies in her veins.
“My dad said something similar last week,” she said, her voice carrying faint traces of her laughter. “I told him I preferred the walk.”
“You like the cold?” he asked. Stupidly, of course. Like the idiot she always turned him into.
“I like the autumn leaves,” and right as she said it, a leaf broke away from its branch, fluttering around in the breeze, and landed on her hair.
It was a sight. Carmen, with her head tipped backwards and her lips stretched into an open smile as her fingers fought to untangle the leaf from her hair.
God, it was a sight.
Asa was losing his mind.
“You collect it for your journal?” he guessed.
She managed to pull the leaf out and then shook her hair, the strands flying around her face before settling down into an endless black river against her back.
“Yeah.” She grinned and it was like the full moon glowing down at Asa.
Carmen, he’d wanted to say right then, how could you ever believe the moon was cracked?
“I’ll drive you home,”
