Carson was a darn good swimmer but had a very poor sportsmanship. Last academic year, when the interstate swimming meet was held, Asa had hoped it would be himself and a swimmer from another school who’d be on the lead. Unfortunately, the meet allowed more than one swimmer from a school to participate, and it ended up with both Carson and Asa fighting for the championship.
Their strained acquaintanceship only hardened and turned bitterer when Asa had won the title.
“As in, the interstate one?” Isla inquired, snapping Asa out of his thoughts.
“Yeah,” Carson nodded, before his eyes met with Asa’s. A slow, spiteful smirk crawled over his face. “Didn’t you know already? That’s funny, you know, considering you’ve been to all of Asa’s competitions and meets.”
The chatter around the table came to an abrupt stop, like a truck forced to pull the brakes before a red light whilst driving in full speed.
“Shut the hell up, man,” Wyatt muttered in a bored manner, but Asa noticed the way his friend’s shoulders tensed, as if bracing himself for all hell to break loose.
“What?” Carson blinked in feigned innocence. “It was just an observation. I mean, come on. Who else at this table isn’t shocked at the fact that the lovebirds are having a little spat?”
“Shut your face, Carson,” Isla snarled, stabbing her plate with the fork in her hand, letting the sound rip through the cafeteria. “We’re not lovebirds.”
“Cool, you’re not going out then.” He shrugged. “Just rolling around in the sheets with each other.”
Asa curled his palms into fists on his lap, taking in deep breaths and reminding himself not to cause a scene—that he couldn’t give into his impulsive nature and pound his fist into Carson’s face as he liked.
“Shut it,” Asa warned. “or I’ll make you.”
“Stop it now,” Lyra, one of the players from the girls’ basketball team, spoke up with a scowl on her face, placing her palm on Asa’s balled up fists in an effort to calm down. “And leave Isla alone.” Despite Lyra and Wyatt knowing each other all their life, Asa had only began interacting with her during the end of junior year. So it was safe to say it came as a pleasant surprise for Asa to hear her put Carson in his place.
Ronnie, point guard of the boys’ basketball team, chuckled. “What? It’s no secret Isla’s made her way through half of the guys in this school, probably even the teachers. You really think she hasn’t done it with Asa of all people?”
Why wasn’t Isla fighting back?
Asa’s eyes landed on her, and something twisted in his gut when he noticed the exhaustion in her eyes. It made him angry—not at her, but for her. It made him want to react in a way that would surely earn him another detention.
“Well, Ronnie,” Carson started again, but there was the edge to his voice that got under Asa’s skin the wrong way and made his blood simmer. “Maybe she didn’t bang him just yet. Maybe she never will. Maybe—” Carson’s grin widened, “—it’s just that she prefers a certain type.”
The air went still, and it was as if everybody just froze in their place, even in their miniscule actions. As if all their lungs had taken a break while they held their breaths for whatever came next.
“What,” Asa’s voice was steely, his narrowed eyes lethal enough to turn anyone into stone, “is that supposed to mean?”
“Just that she must like guys with a certain allure, you know,” Carson replied in nonchalance. “For example, guys who actually are from this country.”
Nobody spoke.
Nobody moved.
Heck, nobody even seemed to be batting an eyelash or blinking.
They were all just waiting, waiting, waiting. Preparing themselves, bracing themselves for something they all knew in their minds was going to unfold pretty soon.
“Is there something you want to say, Carson?” Asa’s deathly calm tone was that moment just before the storm roared to life. It kept everybody’s feet planted to the spot, rendering them too afraid to even twitch.
“Yeah, Asa San Román,” he spat out the name like it was poison on his tongue. “I have something to say—”
Wyatt butted in. “Okay, Carson, you need to calm the heck—”
Carson ignored Wyatt, pinning Asa down with a venomous glare and getting out into the open what he probably was itching to spit out ever since their rivalry began to grow into something more malicious.
“I am so sick of people like you walking into this goddamn city like you actually belong here, as if this is your fucking home,” Carson snarled. “Stealing our jobs, stealing our titles, our scholarships. What? The hellhole you come from isn’t good enough for you? Is that why you infest our—”
Whatever else was spilling out of Carson’s mouth was drowned out by the protests of the others at their table, which in turn caused all the other tables in the eating area to look in their direction with bewilderment and nervousness.
All those who Asa was sitting with were chastising Carson, bombarding him with angry remarks and telling him that they no longer lived in an era where people were separated by their race or the colour of their skin. But it all fell on Asa’s deaf ears.
He was too busy staring at Isla who’d just shrunken further into her seat, unable to meet Asa’s eyes, choosing to be blissfully ignorant.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Hayden thundered at Isla, his grey eyes narrowing in disgust at her. “You’re not even going to say something?”
“What’s there to say, Hayden?” she asked in a bored tone. “If Asa wants someone to pacify him and tell him it’s all going to be all right, he can go running to his mother.”
Lyra snorted, making Isla’s eyes snap towards her while all the others were too
