Chapter 1
1942
Carmen’s POV
This is it, the moment I need to say goodbye to the thing that I love most, has arrived. Bucky Barnes told me a few weeks ago that he had enlisted for the Army. All I remember is the hurt, anger and guilt that I felt in that moment. I was so upset that he would dare break the promise we made with our best friend, Steve Rogers, to stay here, in Brooklyn, away from the war. Safe. But only now, I remember the thousands that have died or been injured or even lost their minds to this terrible fighting, and I could not bear to leave what I need to say, unsaid.
I have known Steve my whole life, our mothers are best friends, and our dads were too, before Steve’s dad died in the war. They met when the Rogers helped my parents when they emigrated from Mexico to the US. His mum treats me like her own daughter, and I think of her as my second mother. My parents and Steve feel the same way. We are like a really big happy family along with his sister.
He was a year older than me and is short, skinny and has light skin, blue eyes and blond hair. He was smart, but unexpectedly brave. I on the other hand had big, curly, brown hair, tan skin, brown eyes and millions of freckles, all over my body. I was cheeky, smart and fun and I had the biggest smile that was always stuck to my face. Steve and I were always the same height, unlike all the other kids. Once the year that I turned five and he turned six came around, we started elementary school because I was too smart (and too excited) to wait another year. That’s where we met Bucky.
He was always too loud for the teacher to manage, too naughty to stay out of trouble, and too funny for us to do any schoolwork. He had dark brown hair, a tall and strong build, steel blue eyes and a charming smile. While he was extremely popular, Steve and I were overlooked for our height and my gender and race, and yet ever since our first year of school, we have been the strangest but most inseparable best friends with the spontaneous, James Buchanan Barnes.
One day Steve and I were minding our business doing our schoolwork when some boys were making fun of us, you know the standard throwing paper at our heads and yelling slurs at us, but Bucky stood up for us, two outsiders who he didn’t even know. He stopped them and came and sat with us and never left. As we grew up together our bodies changed (well most of us), Bucky’s face grew even more handsome and well, you know, I’m a girl so… let’s just say I matured as well. And while Steve grew with me in height, that’s all that really happened for him. Puberty just wasn’t his prime time (actually, I don’t think he’s really had a prime time). Bucky became even stronger, taller and his dashing facial features became more defined. Now when he talked his voice was deep and soothing.
And of course, now I could lose all of this, this incredible life that we’ve built for ourselves, to this stupid fighting. There are so many things that I need to tell Bucky, so many things that I have bottled up for 15 years. I have a crush on Bucky, a big one, and to be honest, I think I always have.