“Why are you telling me this?” Asa asked, genuinely confused and realising how odd a conversation this actually was. Were they actually talking about a goddamn leaf? What bothered him more was how amusing he truly found it— how simple and warm what she spoke about was while it contrasted immensely to her intensity and rawness.
“Um…” she trailed off before laughing lightly. “I actually don’t know?” She scrunched her nose as if trying to figure out herself why she was telling him any of this. “I don’t know. It’s just nice to talk to you.”
“Oh.” Asa blushed, forcing his eyes to stay on the road, while his bottom lip curled into his mouth in an attempt to bite down the idiotic smile that threatened to take over his face.
“Yes, I’ve actually wanted to talk to you for some time now,” she went on, and Asa felt his cheeks grow hotter. “Never really knew what to say though. I couldn’t very well just walk up to you and ask you how your day was going.”
He only grunted in reply, not daring to speak, not daring to stop biting down on his lip in case it stretched into a megawatt grin that he certainly didn’t want her to see. Why the heck did he want to grin anyway? He felt so ridiculous right now. It was ridiculous to even feel this ridiculous.
Oh God, he thought and mentally kicked himself. He was losing it.
He just wanted her to stop talking about him—of him. Of how she had wanted to strike a conversation with him and she had been thinking about it for a while. It was twisting Asa’s insides, and he didn’t like the feeling.
There was something undeniably terrifying of knowing that Carmen West, the girl who had a touch of galaxies in her veins, had been paying him attention long before he was even aware of it. As if Asa was something to marvel at even though she was a masterpiece herself.
“I think I actually have a quote,” he found himself saying, wanting to talk about something else. Anything else.
“Oh, what is it?” She leaned in a bit, a grin tugging at the corners of her lips just as Asa stopped the car in front of her house.
And he opened his mouth to respond because, yes, he did actually have this quote about how autumn was a season of the soul than of nature (or something along those lines, anyway) by Friedrich Nietzsche. But the moment he looked away from examining their surroundings as he instinctively did, and landed his gaze on her, the words got lost somewhere up in his throat.
Carmen was looking at him eagerly, her eyes alight with something he couldn’t name. Her lips were stretched into a smile, offering him a tiny peek into her white but slightly crooked teeth. A strand of her hair had fallen in front of her face, the tip of it resting against the hollow where both her collarbones met.
Asa had decided a long time back that Carmen tended to make him lose his mind, so he wasn’t too shocked when he lifted his hand and brushed that strand of hair away, his fingers sweeping over her collar and neck in a single stroke. Gently, hesitantly; the way an amateur artist would when holding a paintbrush for the first time.
“No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face,” he murmured, transfixed by everything that was Carmen. “It’s by John Donne,” he continued, losing himself a little more into the universe she held in her eyes, “From The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose. It was quite a good read.”
“Why are you whispering?” Carmen asked and Asa thought someone had set him on fire by the way his cheeks and neck was burning.
“Because I’m an idiot.” He sighed, leaning away and putting some distance between them. “You’re welcome for the quote, by the way.”
“Oh, yes, thank you.” She smiled sheepishly. “It’s a beautiful quote.”
Asa grunted in reply, his mind racing and blood pounding in his ears.
“I’m not really surprised that it came from you,” she said.
Asa swallowed, ignoring that jolt in his chest. What was worse was that she wasn’t even hitting on him, or trying to be smooth. She was just being Carmen, and he only admired her more for it.
“Technically, it didn’t come from me,” he muttered, scratching the back of his head. “I was just repeating someone else’s words…”
“…Who probably died centuries ago but your mind remembered it anyway.”
“Well, not—”
“Asa, will you please just stop trying to twist everything beautiful about you into something else?” she asked tiredly. “Can you, for once, just take my compliment and be happy with it?”
Asa’s mouth dropped open, and he could swear he was about to say something in response but, God help him, he couldn’t. What would he say to that? What could he say to that?
“Good boy.” She patted his cheek in the most patronising way possible, albeit with the cheekiest twinkle in her eyes, then she pushed the door open, jumping out of the truck barefoot. She grabbed her art journal from the dashboard and tucked it into her bag, before leaning down and grabbing her pair of worn-out shoes.
“See you tomorrow then, Asa.” She told him over her shoulder as she walked towards the door of her house, her backpack clutched in one hand and shoes dangling in the other.
She hadn’t bothered closing the passenger door this time, too, but Asa’s mind was a million worlds away to care.
25.
Bruised Knuckles & Bleeding Hearts
“Hey, Dad?” Carmen asked through a mouthful of slightly burnt waffles, tapping her fork on the edge of her plate. “Can I—”
“Swallow first,” her dad said with slight disgust. “Don’t speak with
