Carmen didn’t mind, though. Those flames will keep her warm on the nights when everything else fell apart and abandoned her on the cold concrete.
“A player, by definition, is someone who plays around with feelings and hearts. And correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think you actually fit into that category. You don’t string along anyone, do you?”
“Of course not,” he said softly. “I just meant that I understand why it was an assumption everyone made…but somehow, you don’t.”
“I told you.” She looked away from him, too scared he’d see something in her eyes when this topic came up. “I don’t assume. I don’t care what other people think.”
“Yeah, I remember. I’m asking why you take such a strong stand against it…it just feels like there’s something more there. Like you take it very deep to heart whenever anyone’s being judgemental.”
Carmen couldn’t remember the last time she felt such panic take hold of her heart, almost squeezing the life out of it. But she’d mastered the skill to remain unfazed a long time ago when she had to be the shoulder her father had to lean on when it became too much for him to walk without the ground beneath him cracking wide open.
She’d long since learnt to slip a smile on her face and crinkle the edges of her eyes so that it looked genuine enough to make it easier for those around her to break without wondering if maybe she was breaking too, if not already broken.
And that is what Carmen did then; she offered him a soft smile as if she didn’t feel herself slipping further and further into the abyss that always came calling during such moments of vulnerability.
“I could ask you the same thing, you know,” she deflected his question subtly, but also genuinely, as she was also curious and wanted to ask Asa this question for a while now. “You defend Isla when they label her a slut, but you don’t stick up for yourself when they pass their judgements on you.” She frowned, wondering why Asa believed he wasn’t worthy of being defended. “What makes you think they’re all wrong when they ridicule her but that you’re expected to tolerate it when the same is done to you?”
Asa just stared at her, not saying anything. He did that a lot these days, Carmen realised. It was as if he no longer knew how to use his voice.
“I mean, I’ve seen you defend so many kids who get bullied time and time again, but instead of defending yourself, you’re trying to beat and bend yourself into the shape everyone wants you take form.” She bit the corner of her lip, continuing to stare at him with worry swimming in her eyes. “And Asa, there’s only so much you can bend yourself before you break.”
“I guess I never thought it mattered enough,” he admitted quietly.
“You mean you never thought that you mattered enough,” she emphasised. “Not it.”
He cracked a small smile, looking at her sideways in an almost secretive glance. “Don’t go getting all philosophical on me now.”
“Hey, I was just giving you a pep talk on vocabulary and definitions.” She held her hands up in a teasing manner. “It was you who took the conversation down this road.”
He laughed then, and Carmen’s heart felt a little more alive again. That abyss that seemed to suck the joy out of her spirits seemed to not be so overpowering anymore. She’d live to fight another day not to succumb to it.
“So, where were we?” Asa asked, grinning. “Ah, right, your ingenious decision to make me play tour guide.”
Carmen pulled in her bottom lip, stopping herself from smiling because of that ridiculous sense of happiness that flooded her when she was reminded that Asa didn’t see Willa in that way.
Carmen always saw things as more than what they were, looking past people’s exteriors while searching for who they were right down to the core of their beings. But with Asa, she was reminded of the simple joys in life. Like what butterflies felt like.
She’d lost herself to the flames of intensity time and time again, that she never knew how much she actually craved for simplicity and the little, ordinary things until Asa had smiled at her for the first time and made her heart flutter in a way that she was sure was common amongst any teenager out there.
It felt nice knowing that she could be just one of them too.
“It wouldn’t be so bad,” she said. “Even though I don’t know what exactly happened in the canteen, I know you’re pretty sad about it and that it’s still bothering you despite having this conversation. Maybe tomorrow will get your mind off things.”
“Actually.” Asa blinked, a look dawning over his face as if he’d just realised something himself. “I didn’t once think about the incident throughout our conversation.” He grinned then, so wide that the sheer joy radiating off it nearly blinded Carmen.
Watching him smile in that manner was probably just the same as staring at the sun for too long that once you looked away from such magnificence, it took you a few moments to compose yourself and your sight to adjust to your surroundings again.
“Oh,” was all Carmen could say. Was it really her own presence that had distracted him from his troubles?
“Thank you,” he said, sounding surprised himself.
She laughed, slapping his arm lightly. “It’s not like I did it intentionally.”
“Wouldn’t be surprised even if you had,” he told her quietly, his face turning serious.
She only shook her head with a small smile in response, “So, we’ll see you there tomorrow?”
“Wait, you’ll be there too?” Asa asked, sitting up a little straighter. Somehow, he didn’t look so weary of tomorrow anymore.
Carmen nodded. “Yeah, she initially wanted
