Through Your Eyes [SAMPLE] ✓

21 • Black Rose

» ιғ yoυ wanт тo ĸnow нιѕ ѕoυl,
looĸ aт wнere нιѕ eyeѕ are wнen yoυ caтcн нιм ѕмιlιng «

—Lang Leav

Chapter Twenty One

The thing about speaking to Carmen, Asa realised, was that you were so caught up in every single world that fell past her lips and every single thing that she did, that you didn’t really realise what she was saying until she’d gone away and taken that spell she casted over you along with her.

Because as he sat in his second period class, all he could think about was the words ‘matchmaker’ and ‘cupid’ and everything along those lines that unsettled him for some reason.

He didn’t want Willa in that way, did he? Yes, he was a guy and no, he wasn’t blind to her looks and maybe it could actually go that way with her but… but what, Asa?

But Willa didn’t see him yet, not in the sense of the way he wanted to be seen— if it was even possible to be seen like that.

He just couldn’t figure out why Willa stood out to him; why it was her approval he craved so much for. He just hated it when people assumed the worst of him, but what he detested even more was the restless part of him that couldn’t be at peace with it. The part of him that wanted to satisfy and prove people wrong if they thought of him a certain way that he knew couldn’t be true.

That part of him that was a little boy just craving for affection and appraisal seemed to dominate every other sense of logic in him.

But Asa was also a very passionate person, his blood always burning with one emotion or another and setting his veins on fire as it coursed through him. He was a heart-over-head guy and that fuelled almost every decision and choice he made, often leading to the most exhilarating or devastating circumstances.

In Asa’s world, there wasn’t room for reasoning. For logic. So who was he to question why it was that he was ready to go to any lengths to feel validated by the girl with curly chestnut hair and incredible hazel eyes?

•••

“How’d I do?”

“Consistent as the July heat in this town,” Wyatt said, “nineteen seconds, exactly.”

      Asa nodded and hauled himself out of the pool, where he’d just finished practicing his backstrokes.

“Keep going and you might end up being titled national champion this year too,” he grinned, “except, it’d be for the under nineteen category instead.”

Asa chuckled, grabbing his towel off the bleachers and wiping his face with it. “I appreciate the encouragement, buddy, but maybe boost yourself too? You could go and claim that title as much as I’m capable of it.”