Art, she’d long since realised, made up for her lack of light.
•••
“Want me to give you a ride today?”
Carmen looked up at her father, her hands pausing in its fidgeting with her necklace.
She smiled, kind and warm, just like how she always smiled. “No, Dad,” she said with a slight shake of the head. “You know I prefer the walk.”
“It’s September,” he muttered. “It’s chilly out.”
“But it’s also the best time of the year for me to collect stuff for my journal,” she pointed out gently. Autumn leaves, specifically. Carmen just loved how September made the leaves blush in shades of red and orange.
She heard her father sigh, but done with affection. “You and that journal of yours,” he muttered, almost to himself, shaking his head. Carmen watched as his eyes lit up with his soft smile then grew distant as if remembering a hazy memory from another lifetime. She had to tear her eyes away once she saw pain flood into her father’s.
Pain, pain, pain.
There was so much pain. But, Carmen realised, if she could smile and find some ounce of peace in her mind when the battles within them had calmed for a brief moment, then the world wasn’t so bad a place, was it?
The world hadn’t robbed her of her smile. Not yet. She supposed she could be at least thankful for that.
“I love you,” she suddenly said. Because within that second, in that tiniest of infinities, she needed him to know.
Surprise sparked in her father’s eyes, albeit brief. But it was there, along with a smudge of joy as a smile crept back in his face.
It warmed Carmen’s heart. Her heart that, despite everything, was still capable of empathy and love.
And Carmen believed, in that moment at least, that was perhaps the most powerful defence she had against her own head.
•••
Carmen was in the school office during lunch, filling out the details on a form for her student ID card (she’d lost her previous one—much to her dismay since she had had it ever since freshman year) when the door flew open and a disgruntled Mrs. Cromwell stormed in.
She did not look happy.
“Smart ass,” she mumbled harshly under her breath. “Prettier than an ape, my foot!”
Carmen wrinkled her brows, confusion sweeping through her at the disciplinarian’s odd muttering. For a wild moment, she wondered if Mrs. Cromwell had hit her head somewhere and was harbouring a slight concussion.
“Everything all right, Martha?” One of the administrators in the office asked.
“As long as Asa San Román exists, no,” she snapped, malice inserted in every syllable of the person’s name. Carmen wondered what it was like to feel so much hatred in one’s heart. Surely, it brought no happiness, did it?
“Don’t you think you’re being a little hard on the boy?” the daring administrator asked and Carmen’s eyes flew to her name tag: Miss Willoughby. Carmen decided Miss Willoughby was quite a brave soul if not flinching under Mrs Cromwell’s venomous glare was any indication.
Sensing that the disciplinarian was about to give Willoughby a piece of her mind, Carmen quickly finished with the form, handed it over and left the office, saving the administrator from the embarrassment of getting chided in front of a student.
She walked down the hall with a ghost of a smile on her face, ready to give it to somebody who came her way. Truly, she never knew who might need a smile that day.
The thought didn’t finish crossing her mind when her eyes landed on a slightly pudgy girl nearby. She was standing by the lockers, alone, while people walked past her. Little bits of food littered around her feet and created a small trail towards a trash can nearby, where a whole tray of an uneaten meal was dumped.
Carmen was confused as to why anyone would want to waste a whole lot of food, but her curiosity didn’t matter once she took in the sad eyes of the girl.
So Carmen smiled at the girl. The girl blinked in disbelief, but eventually smiled back, too. And as those frowning lips curved up and the sadness dissipated from those lovely golden eyes, Carmen also felt warmth flood over herself in a gentle wave.
But as she walked past the girl, the warmth faded.
The unwelcomed and unwanted coldness swept in, reminding her of a memory she’d tucked in the farthest corner of her mind: that she was born with blood on her hands and no amount of smiles or waves of warmth were flushing that away.
03.
Judgment
After Cromwell had thrown him one last revolted glare and stormed away with Hunter following behind her, Asa let his muscles relax and cursed under his breath.
Which brainless disciplinary head did not listen to two sides of a story? The one that worked at his high school, apparently.
He was going to have a hard time explaining this to his mother. God knew how many times his thoughtlessness and brash attitude had landed him in detention over the past few years. The only reason they didn’t resort to expelling him from the goddamn school was probably because his father was on the school board. There was also the fact that Asa was an asset to them, what with him winning the all-state swimming championship last year for the under-eighteen category.
Hell, the first reason was most definitely the only thing this school thought mattered about him anyway.
Needless to say, Asa was in a pretty shitty mood for the rest of the day, scowling at anyone who even so much as made eye contact with him.
By the time lunch rolled around, his mood had worsened along with his gut where Hunter had attacked him with his head. Asa was quite certain there was a
