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Luz was a pretty girl, she could say that much about herself and feel relatively good about it, she didn’t have a problem with her appearance even when she kind of destroyed her hair a year ago trying to have a cute hairstyle.
No, her problem was other things.
Like the fact that she kept overthinking about herself and her flaws without apparent reason just to try and forget the reason she even started in the first place.
That Amity, great Amity Blight, impossible crush girl Amity Blight does have a crush of her own.
Luz sighed and rolled over her bed. Better sweet emotions crawled into her mind once again. The pressure in her chest was, by all means, something imaginary; not meaning it hurt less. She could cope with pain, she had done before; she’ll do it again at that time. Amity liking someone wasn’t something bad, she was happy her… friend could feel like that. She was happy, really happy…
Not.
“Why am I like this?” Luz rolled to face the ceiling again. “I should be happy… stupid heart let me be happy for her!”
She gave up against her head after twenty minutes and sat up. Looking at her window she considered all and finally stood up. Taking her phone and walking downstairs.
The house was devoid of any noise beside her; not even Hooty made a sound. She took the key for the portal and clicked it, the door appearing fast enough. Luz stared at it by five, maybe ten minutes before opening it.
The Wi-Fi came fast enough. She could have text messages with no complications, but the internet was another matter entirely.
She clicked on her social media. Looking at her school photos of the last dance, the last group pictures of her group were already up.
She wasn’t there.
Not a surprise if Luz was honest with herself, she got suspended that day because of an incident with rats. Luz scrolled to the rest of the images. She could make out at least five cute classmates she tried to bond before.
It hurt more than what she had anticipated, but it did the work.
All of them h dates, they looked happy and that made Luz happy enough to face her current predicament. The one thing she was avoiding since her mom took all her mind after the dance.
Amity liked someone.
The notion, the possibility had been there, Luz knew Amity had a romantic side, she also knew the witch deserved love, even more than what she herself thought she deserved.
But it still hurt her to think of it, to consider all of it.
Because of that smile Luz had seen; when they talked in the hallways, the expectation she saw in the forest at night and the… the dance, it all was so perfect, perfect timing, perfect distance…
Perfect Amity.
Luz closed her eyes and avoid looking at the sole photo of herself on the page. She was not perfect, never been and she knew it. She was a disaster.
A weirdo; a mess, a disaster waiting to happen...
A freak…
Images of notes, flashes of people laughing, the pain shooting through her body for phantom hits, the voices coming to her mind…
“No, no, n…n-no…”
She dropped to her knees and closed her eyes, hard, letting the phone on the floor and holding her head in her hands. She couldn’t do it, not again, the air was getting in her lungs, but she couldn’t breathe, her heart was too fast, or was it too slow? Where was the floor now?
Why couldn’t she even breathe like a normal person?!
“Calm… calm down…” she said, “just… remember… five things you can see… four you hear… three you can touch…”
She managed to control herself. She was OK, she was in control.
But she was still no good.
Luz hugged herself, something hot rolled down her cheek and she saw the carpet getting stained in small dots. She was crying, fantastic. Luz whipped her face with an arm and took deep breathes, she wasn’t crying for this again. Not ever again, she made a vow.
To distract herself she got up and closed the portal, resting her head in the door just enough to cool down. Her eyes caught her reflection in the mirror of the wall.
I’m a mess… Luz thought and sighed, taking her phone from the ground she made her way back to her room.
Inside she fought against the memories again, the insults, the disgusted faces from the people, the talk with her mom about liking, and who was OK to. Luz felt a sing and looked at her hands, she was about to hurt herself.
“Not today,”
Dropping in her bed she recollected her thoughts. She was OK, she was not a freak, and she will be fine, someday she’ll find someone who likes her, someone Luz can manage to charm enough into liking her. She’ll just wait.
Then, calmer. Luz's thoughts went back to Amity. She considered the possibilities of who could be lucky to be targeted by the witch. Amity never proved to be… well straight, even her art in the Azura books was pretty open-minded.
So who could they be?
One of her classmates? An upper classmate? Not likely, Amity didn’t seem to be the type to ask a person she didn’t talk to or at least had some kind of significant relationship to something like Grom. No, it had to be someone she knew, maybe Boscha, Skara? It could make sense the last one, Skara seemed like the less mean of her –parents imposed– friends; besides she was pretty sad looking and angry when Skara got her date.
Still…
Amity didn’t seem interested in Skara at all, so Boscha… no, Luz couldn’t picture it; Boscha was mean to the core. Amity was too good for her, even if her opinion was mean, Luz didn’t are, Amity could not have had been wanting to invite Boscha.
But then, who?
Luz's mind drifted to all the possibilities and none seemed to work.
“Come on, is not like it too hard,” Luz said, “by all means, she could have been just trying to invite…!”
Her mouth stopped in time but her mind didn’t.
The thought shook her, literally. The idea sends a chill down her spine and Luz was sure her heart just fluttered… to the moon and back, if that made any sense.
“…By all means, she could… she could…” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “She could have been trying to invite… me?”
Saying it out loud was a bad idea.
Her reaction from before paled in contrast with the one she got then. Her pulse went to overdrive, and the heat in her cheeks is enough to sing of her current appearance. Luz slapped herself three times before the rush stopped. She buried her face in the pillows, cursing herself and her stupid, stupid imagination.
As if someone as great as Amity could like her.
Amity the prodigy, the rich girl, the girl with the best test scores, great back story, and actual sense for fashion, popular, kind-hearted, pretty, incredible dancer… most beautiful person Luz had ever seen… just perfect, just amazing…
Just Amity…
“As if she could like me,” Luz said.
The mess, the mismatched in both worlds, that had to control her every movement around people back home to not make them ‘uncomfortable’ and whose mother had decided was to ‘weird’ to let her be herself.
As if.
Luz banished the thought from her mind and even when it stung her like someone just stabbed her. She knew it was for the best. Amity deserved someone better than Luz, someone who could actually make her happy, someone that wasn’t messed up like her.
Someone who wasn’t feeling guilty for liking her; who could think of having her laughing just for them and holding hands without considering some kind of a crime because they would be hoarding the beauty Amity could share with the world by just being herself.
“Someone who is not me…” Luz whispered, “Amity deserves more than me.”
Luz closed her eyes and sighed. Amity wouldn’t have a crush on someone if they were not worthy of her, Luz was just overthinking it, she wasn’t going to let Amity get hurt anyway, she’d fight anyone who would dare to erase her smile.
She was going to make sure Amity was happy.
After all, it was all she could do…
“It’s what friends do…” she repeated the same line she had told her.
Luz wanted to cry again. This time she allowed it, the tears rolled down her cheeks and she sobbed, silently to not wake up the others.
She’d be fine in the morning; going to class, facing Amity and pretending her heart doesn’t flutter with her smile and that the dance they shared wasn’t flashing every time and that she thought about how well their hands fit together.
She would be fine in the morning; everything would be.
She wanted to cry that night, alone in her room, without Amity ever knowing what she felt.
Because that’s what friends do.