Surprise flickered in her eyes before her lips curved into a smile again. “You don’t have to—”
“I’d like to.” He shrugged, stuffing his hands back into his pockets. “You’re not even wearing a sweater. And neither am I so I can’t offer you any.”
“You have a very nice mind, Asa,” she told him then, and Asa thought he’d burn by the way she was looking at him.
“Nice mind?” he repeated.
Carmen nodded. “Always looking to help.” She tilted her head and Asa’s world tilted with it. “It makes me think you have a beautiful heart.”
Asa laughed then, because every other logical response had flown right out of his mind. “Come on, we’ve been standing here way too long. We gotta get going.”
But when he’d checked his watch, he realised that only seven minutes had passed since he’d walked out of school and caught up with Carmen.
Seven minutes. And yet Asa could swear he’d caught a glimpse of what infinity felt like.
18.
Everything She Touched
Asa knew he was supposed to focus on the road while driving, but he couldn’t help himself from sneaking sideway glances at Carmen who was smiling to herself in the passenger seat.
“What are you smiling about?” he asked, unable to stop the question.
“This leaf is so beautiful.” She sighed, twirling the dry, pale red leaf between her thumb and forefinger.
“It’s a leaf,” he said dryly.
She laughed then, and he could swear another shooting star was born somewhere in the cosmos. Or maybe it was just inside his chest, near his ribcage.
“But don’t you…” she started to say then trailed off, her eyes narrowing slightly while the wheels in her head turned. “When you see this leaf, or any red leaf for that matter, doesn’t it feel like—like they’re blushing? As if the September wind whispered something so intimate to the trees that they blushed so hard and their leaves turned red?”
Carmen, he’d wanted to say. Carmen, Carmen, Carmen. As if saying her name would make him understand the way her mind worked any better. But Asa realised he couldn’t stare at the leaf in her hand and see it as just a leaf anymore. And it made him wonder then if Carmen had a way of taking the galaxies in her veins and pouring it out through her fingertips, if she knew how she was giving something as mundane as a leaf an element of wonder just by her touch. Maybe everything Carmen looked at turned into a thing of magic. Or maybe, Asa decided yet again, he was just losing his mind.
“No,” he eventually said. “No, I’ve never looked at it that way.”
She turned her head towards him, offering him a crooked smile, and goddammit, he’s supposed to be focusing on the road. “That’s good.” She nodded. “It must be nice, just seeing the world for what it is.”
Carmen, he wanted to say. Are you out of your mind? Because now Asa didn’t want to see the world for what it was anymore. Now Asa wanted to see it through Carmen’s eyes. Maybe then, when he stared into the mirror, he’d see himself as magic too. Maybe then, if he touched his cheek, his skin would have that element of wonder too. Just like everything Carmen looked at, just like everything Carmen touched.
Silence had fallen over them, but Asa didn’t know if he could describe it as either a comfortable or an uneasy one. Because she was undoubtedly thinking of something—no, not thinking—probably painting another theory inside her head, and he was battling against watching the road and watching her.
It was silent, yes, but with neither of them acknowledging it, there might as well have been noise.
“Why do you like her?”
The question startled Asa, who’d been lost in thought of her midnight hair and her ivory skin.
“What?” He blinked. God, was he an idiot?
“Willa.” She smiled. “Why do you like her? If I’m right, you really don’t even know her yet.”
Did Asa like Willa? He didn’t think so. But it would take a lifetime for him to explain.
“I just need—she’s got the wrong idea of me.” His fingers tapped the steering wheel, eyes scanning the vehicles in front of him as they stopped at a red light.
“There’s always someone out there who’s got the wrong idea of you.” Her eyes narrowed a slight fraction. “Always going to be.”
Asa clenched and unclenched his jaw. “And I’m okay if that someone was Hunter,” he said. “Or Cromwell. Don’t see why it’s necessary to add another name to that list.”
The silence grew thick and uncomfortable for him as he continued to feel Carmen’s eyes burning holes into the side of his face, studying him. There was this sudden urge to just rip the steering wheel off and chuck it out through the windshield. Maybe then she’d look away.
“She does have a wrong impression of you,” Carmen finally said, looking away as the light turned green and Asa started driving again.
“What makes you say that?” He shot her a glance and then turned his attention back to the road in front of him.
“At lunch the other day, Joyce and Lottie were giving her the rundown on the social hierarchy of our school.”
“And?”
“I guess she had it in her head that you’re a player.” Carmen’s voice was steady as it usually was, the words flowing from her mouth easily in a conversational manner. She spoke like she had all the time in the world to say whatever she wanted, and that fascinated him for some reason. “I kind of set the record straight.”
He shot her another glance from the corner of
