They said eyes were windows to the soul and the way Carmen looked at him made him believe in that without a doubt as she sent lightning bolts his way, piercing through his skin and bones and touching something buried way deeper into his being.
But Carmen was only human, he reminded himself. And one human cannot hold that much power: her actually being able to see him, all of him.
“I did that because it was the right thing to do,” he said, softening his tone, “and because you stood up for Isla. I’ve told you that. And you don’t need to repay me for something that doesn’t deserve it.”
“It’s not a repayment, Asa.” She sighed, and goddammit, was it his name that spilled out of her mouth just now? How did she string three letters together and make it sound like it was one of her masterpieces she painted in the dead of the night? “I… I just.” She paused, and Asa waited. “I would like to surround myself with beautiful things. And when I say things, I also mean people.” Asa didn’t think he was breathing anymore. He couldn’t be. It should be a sin to be able to breathe after being spoken to like that by Carmen West. “And like I said when you drove me back home, you have a very nice inside, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to be in your presence from time to time.”
Silence was all that was there even though the bell for the first period just rang. Asa knew that students were banging their lockers shut, some of them were still talking, others exchanging hurried goodbyes and promises to catch up with each other during lunch. Despite all the extra noise, he couldn’t hear them.
“Um,” Carmen started, her mouth opening and closing like it was fighting with itself. “That is, you know, if you don’t mind. Is it because of the way I speak? Too weird? Lottie once told me I spoke too intensely, that it was sometimes creepy, so I’m sorry if it—”
“No,” he said firmly, snapping out of his dazed state within a blink of an eye. “It’s not creepy in the slightest bit. You wouldn’t be Carmen if you didn’t speak the way you do.” There was that fire coursing through Asa’s veins again, wanting to defend this girl he knew but didn’t know, because he didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable in her own skin.
But then his words registered, and when she beamed at him like he was a beacon of light, he felt his cheeks burn. He knew he could be too passionate in his speech. He wanted to slap himself for letting himself get carried away just now.
“I mean, you know,” he straightened himself, clearing his throat, “it’s cool.”
“That’s great.” She smiled, her fingers reaching for the chain around her neck and tugging it. “So, see you in class, I guess.”
He shut his locker and grabbed his bag off the floor, throwing it over his right shoulder as it hung crookedly against his back.
“Yeah, we have AP Lit in fifth period, right?”
“Actually, I was talking about third period. Mr Kyung’s class.”
Asa’s brows pulled together as his lips parted slightly, his mind racing through any memory he may have of that particular class. “We have AP Cal together too?”
Something in Carmen’s eyes seemed to deflate the slightest bit. Asa thought it was nothing but a trick of the lighting in the hallway. “Of course,” she said, voice as steady as ever and the smile not wavering in the slightest. Maybe he’d only imagined it. “I sit behind you since we’re assigned tables according to our last names.”
Asa wanted to bang his head against concrete so badly.
“So there’s no one with last names starting with T, U, and V?” He smiled uneasily, feeling like he’d committed some kind of a crime in secret and that it was only coming to light now.
Did he really sit in front of this girl and not have been aware of her presence?
“Guess not.” She smiled at him one last time and then began walking away.
The warning bell rang, but it just fell past Asa’s ears, not making its way through to him as he watched Carmen walk with that subtle tilt to her head as she let her eyes drink in anything and everything as if she was painting another masterpiece now. As if she was pouring all her heart into something else not another soul will ever know about.
21.
Black Rose
The thing about speaking to Carmen, Asa realised, was that while you were so caught up in every single world that fell past her lips and every single thing that she did, you wouldn’t really realise what she was saying until she’d gone away and taken that spell she cast over you along with her.
And as Asa sat in his second period class, all he could think about was the words “matchmaker” and “cupid” and everything along those lines that unsettled him for some reason.
He didn’t want Willa in that way, did he? Yes, he was a guy and no, he wasn’t blind to her looks and maybe it could actually go that way with her but…but what, Asa?
But Willa didn’t see him yet, not in the way he wanted—past the popularity, the easy smiles and that smooth attitude he had.
He just couldn’t figure out why Willa stood out to him; why it was her approval he craved so much. He just hated it when people assumed the worst of him, but what he detested even more was the restless part of him that couldn’t be at peace with
