Asa bit back a smile and averted his gaze back to his mum.
“That’s not true,” he defended himself, scoffing. “I always come home directly after school.”
“Look at the time, tonto,” she snapped, “wh—”
“No swearing in this house,” both Asa and his father chanted in unison, an identical gleam of mischief in their eyes.
His mother’s head whipped around to fix her steely gaze on his father, and Asa saw the grin freeze on his face.
“Don’t take his side,” she chided. “It makes me look like the bad guy.”
“I’m just an hour late, Ma.” Asa sighed. “Papá’s not even making a fuss.”
“Papá wouldn’t bat an eye if you said you wanted to go skydiving,” she shot back. “He doesn’t worry about anything.”
“But…” Asa grinned. “What if I did want to go skydiving?”
“Not while I’m still breathing.” His mother narrowed her eyes. “So, why have you been coming late these days?”
“Relax,” his father said lazily as he walked forwards and dropped down on the couch. “He’s a boy. It’s normal.”
“And if it was a daughter instead of a son, you’d be the one firing a hundred and one questions and getting your shotgun ready in case there were boys involved,” his mother retorted. “He’s still my kid, and I want to know what he’s been doing after school lets out. Por Dios, it’s a very simple question. I don’t know what you’re making such a huge fuss about.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Asa chuckled. “Okay, calm down, Ma. It’s honestly nothing to worry about, I—” He stopped mid-speech abruptly.
He was blushing.
Well, at least, he thought he was. Because he was going to say that there was this girl who wore no sweater in this chilly weather, and he didn’t like the idea of her walking home in it.
But his lips had curved into a stupid, stupid grin, and he could feel the slight tingling sensation in his cheeks. Goddamn, what was she doing to him? Couldn’t he even speak about her without feeling the ghost of her laughter pull at his heartstrings?
This was utter madness now. There simply was no other explanation to it.
When he snapped out of the trance and zoned back in to his surroundings, he found both his parents staring at him with an odd mixture of expectancy and confusion.
“You okay, mijito?” his father inquired, furrowing his eyebrows.
“Ye—” Asa cleared his throat and stuffed his hands into his pockets, adapting a nonchalant demeanour. “Yeah, I’m great. Anyways, what I was saying was that I’m late because I had to give a ride to a friend.” He shrugged. “Gave her a ride past few days too, so that explains it.”
“‘Her’?” his mother raised her brows.
“Well, now that you’re satisfied he hasn’t been strolling the streets butchering people, maybe you can let him off the hook,” his dad suggested, earning a nasty look from his mother.
“So who’s this girl that’s been keeping you from coming home early and spending time with your poor mother?” she asked, smiling slightly to show that she was only teasing.
“I spend time with you,” his father muttered, making a face.
“It’s not like that, Ma,” Asa mumbled awkwardly, “she’s just a—” Don’t you dare say it, Asa San Román! Don’t you dare say she’s just a girl. Carmen was more than just a girl; she was more than just. She was more. “—a friend,” he said instead, smiling slightly.
“It normally takes you fifteen minutes to reach home once school is over.” His mother said. “Nowadays it takes you about forty minutes, and today you’re a whole hour late! I’m guessing that means her place is out of the way. And you’re telling me you go all that distance to drop off someone who’s just a friend?”
“What can I say, Ma?” Asa lifted his shoulders in an innocent shrug. “You and Papá raised a gentleman.”
“You keep those gentlemanly qualities in mind the next time I ask you to do the dishes and you start sulking,” she muttered, wiping the triumphant look clean off Asa’s face as she nestled into his father’s side on the couch and they got engrossed in a conversation of their own.
He watched them for a moment, wondering if his father viewed the moments spent with the woman beside him as infinites and not minutes or hours. He wondered if his mother’s smile planted seeds in his father’s ribcage and if her laugh made them bloom into flowers that filled the spaces between those bones.
He wondered if that was what falling in love felt like.
He also wondered if perhaps falling implied that there was a landing somewhere, and if it would hurt too much to hit it.
33.
Beacon of Light
The next morning, Asa was up bright and early.
In fact, it’d be pretty safe to say that he’d barely slept through the night because of the knowledge that today, once school was over, he’d be hanging out with Carmen.
Of course, Willa was going to be there, but he figured that was a blessing in disguise because Lord knew he’d be tongue-tied for the most part of the evening if it was just him and Carmen hanging out. He could almost picture himself just staring at her with awestruck eyes while she told him about probably another reason why autumn was beautiful.
Somehow, it was different than the one-on-one moments they shared during the rides back from
