And it was with this newfound strength that Asa found it in himself to face Isla, to look her right in the eye without flinching or letting his mask slip.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “I lost track there. You mentioned something regarding a party?”
“Yeah, it’s tonight.” Isla grinned, her whole set of perfect, shiny white teeth on display.
But Asa found himself picturing Carmen’s slightly crooked ones instead.
“It’s down by the beach actually,” Isla continued and Asa just stared at her, wondering how she could just stand there and speak to him like she hadn’t just ripped his heart out and tossed it over her shoulder like it was just another thing on her to-do list. “There’d be quite a crowd. And I know it’s pretty chilly these days, but there’ll be a bonfire and all that, so you should come.”
“Can’t,” he said, his tone blunt. “Hanging out with Carmen and Willa.”
At the mention of Willa’s name, he saw Isla’s eyes narrow into slits and her mouth form a thin line. He braced himself, waiting for her next verbal attack.
He made this world a better place—Carmen had told him that—and it was slowly getting easier to accept it, easier to even consider believing it. Carmen believed he made this world a better place, and that meant that whatever Isla had to spit at him wouldn’t be true in the least bit. And in that moment, Asa felt ten-feet-tall.
“You can’t be serious,” she said through gritted teeth, the calm façade slipping off. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
“No, Isla,” he said, squaring his shoulders and drilling his eyes into hers. “I’m not.” He slammed his locker shut and tightened his hold on his bag. “Must have something to do with the fact that I’m—what were your words, again? Ah, yes, a pathetic lap dog who goes looking for affection and approval in places where I’m never going to find it.”
Isla’s face was set in a stony expression, but her eyes betrayed her. Asa read the regret in them like an open book.
“I mean, those were your words, right?” he asked, his tone calm and guarded, not giving anything away. He couldn’t see himself opening up to her in the way he used to. Not anymore.
Silence dragged on, placing another brick on the wall that had begun building itself in the space between them. Adding more distance between the minds that had once ran along parallel lines. Severing yet another of the few remaining threads that connected two hearts that had once felt one another’s joys and grievances.
“Just let Carmen know I’ll give her the photographs once school is over,” Isla muttered, before turning around and walking away.
Asa watched her go as she took with her a piece of his heart that he was never going to get back. Perhaps that was his biggest flaw: he placed all the best parts of himself in all the wrong hands. Perhaps that was another step in the road to self-love. Maybe it was acknowledging the fact that it was okay to keep your heart under wraps like it was made of ceramic instead of iron and only letting those with cautious hands to handle it.
As he walked down the hallway, wanting to use the pool in his spare period, Asa found himself thinking of when Carmen had held his face with her hands and how he’d wanted to lean into her palms because they’d sort of felt like home.
Carmen’s hands were cautious. Carmen’s hands were a safe place to put his heart in.
And if he wasn’t careful, Asa could fall in love with her for it.
34.
Take My Hand
Waking up was an accomplishment rather than just an ordinary task for Carmen that morning. Each shift of her muscles was the movement of a mountain, and swinging her feet off the bed and placing it on the floor of her room was stepping on a bed of needles. Her bones weighed as heavy as her heart did that morning, and she didn’t know how she could walk without her feet buckling underneath her, but she did. She managed to walk towards her bathroom, get herself ready even though every inch of her body and mind screamed at her to go back to bed. Back to sleep. Back to that place where everything was just blank and nothing could touch her.
She didn’t want to die, but she also wouldn’t mind if she never woke up from her sleep one of these days. And that was supposed to terrify her, but it didn’t. In all honesty, the idea of an endless, undisturbed sleep seemed welcoming to her.
Too welcoming.
Minutes later, she found herself seated on one of the stools at the counter, her father right across her.
She had observed him, saw the bags coating the skin underneath his eyes as if they were bruises his tears had left behind. She saw the dishevelled state of his hair, as if the demons from this house had sat up all night with him running their claws through it.
She wondered if she was a demon too, in her father’s eyes. A demon in flesh and blood. The one that he’d never be able to escape when he’d somehow managed to drive away the ones in his head. The thought made her sick to the stomach, and suddenly, she couldn’t eat anymore.
“Dad?” she called out after some time, her voice sounding scratchy even to her own ears.
He looked
