That was the thing about Carmen, he then realised; she had a way of taking the most ordinary moments and turning them into some of the most extraordinary ones.
Or, maybe, he just found her the most extraordinary in all the moments of his dull life.
“Asa.” She laughed, and he swore another shooting star was born. “We can’t stand here forever. We’re, like, the last students here. Even the janitors are starting to leave.”
But I want to stand here with you, Asa wanted to say. I want to hold your hand and touch your face forever. Carmen made him want to cut open his chest and put his heart and soul on display for her eyes, but he didn’t know how to do that without allowing other people access too.
So he remembered his place and took a step back, dropping his hand from her face and pulling away his other palm from her grasp.
“Yeah, we better get going,” he said, keeping his tone casual, and averted his eyes before he could see her reaction. He made sure his shift in his attitude was subtle, but he was sure it wouldn’t have escaped her notice. Carmen saw everything. He didn’t want to know if pulling back had hurt her in some way.
He’d just had his heart shredded, and he didn’t think he was quite ready to go around handing it to someone else in its raw state before it was fully patched up. Even if that someone happened to be Carmen West, the girl with midnight for her hair and thundercloud for her eyes.
Minutes later, Asa found himself with his hands on the steering wheel of his truck, and right next to him, where she belonged, sat Carmen. His eyes swept over her art journal sitting on the dashboard, her faded sneakers with one of the logos peeling off tossed carelessly on the floor of the vehicle, and then finally Carmen, landing on the seat with her feet tucked underneath her as she made herself at home in the passenger seat yet again.
And, for the first time in his life, Asa felt like home wasn’t necessarily four walls with a front lawn, but maybe two hands and a beating heart.
30.
The Definition of Beautiful
“Oh, by the way. Asa?” Carmen spoke after a long stretch of silence, her voice blending with the tranquillity of it rather than piercing the calm bubble.
“Yeah?” Asa asked in response, his mouth automatically curving upwards into a smile. He just felt so goddamn happy whenever she spoke to him. It was pure madness now.
“I forgot to tell you about our plans for tomorrow,” she said, colouring something in her art journal that Asa made a point not to take a peek at.
“Plans?” His brows furrowed together. “What plans?” He turned to face her just as he stopped right in front of her house and noticed the way she pursed her lips, as if she was being cautious about something.
“Well,” she started and that was enough to instantly put Asa on his guard.
“What’d you do?” he asked wearily.
Her head snapped towards him, her grey eyes widening in innocence. “I didn’t do anything,” she defended. “Well, I mean, not anything bad.”
“Carmen,” he said warningly. “Out with it now.”
She let out a deep sigh that Asa could swear almost had a dramatic touch to it, as she shut her journal and turned her body around completely on the seat to face him.
“Okay, so, Willa hasn’t been around the neighbourhood yet. She kind of needs a tour around the place.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, so, you know.” She shrugged. “I told her you’d be happy to be her guide.”
Asa choked on his own spit, immediately sitting up straighter, as he looked at Carmen like she’d spoken in pig Latin.
“Why would you do that?”
“Because…I thought it was a good idea?” She pressed her lips further that her mouth was almost invisible now.
“What on earth.” He closed his eyes, breathing deeply as he tried to make sense of her logic. “Made you think that was a good idea?”
“You’re the one who told me you needed help to set you up with Willa,” she pointed out.
“What?!” He asked, his mouth gaped open. “When did I ever say that?” He didn’t like Willa in the romantic sense of the way, did he? Of course not. So, what was Carmen going on about?
Carmen sat straighter, looking at Asa like he was the one who’d grown another head now. “You kept my journal from me for it,” she reminded him, incredulity and confusion settling into her eyes. “That’s what you said I had to do in order to get it back!”
“I never said I liked her!”
“Yes, you did,” she responded calmly, and that drove Asa insane. It always got under his skin how she could just remain so unfazed. He had that annoying urge again—to grab her shoulders and shake her hard until she spilled out her actual thoughts.
“No, I didn’t,” he said through gritted teeth, shooting an unimpressed look at her.
“Oh, goodness,” she huffed, placing her journal heavily on the truck’s dashboard. “You said I could only get my journal back if I helped you with Willa.”
“Yeah.” He raised a brow, emphasising on his point. “But I never said to set me up with her. I never even gave the impression that I like her in that sort of way.”
Carmen blinked, as if finding it hard to understand the words leaving Asa’s mouth. “But that’s what you implied,” she said slowly. “What else could those words have meant?”
Asa shrugged helplessly, throwing his hands into the air. “Literally anything else! It could’ve just meant that I wanted a way to interact