hearth ˚↠ camilo madrigal

Chapter 2: Drifting Away

"She has to stay with the us. Her... gift is too dangerous. We never know when she will lose control and burn some of the houses in the town. At least here, we can keep an eye on her."

This is what abuela told your parents after it was revealed that you, a non-Madrigal, has a gift. Everyone already left the house and only asked for your parents to stay.

It wasn't a peaceful gift where you could fly above the skies or even levitate objects in the air with a single touch. If it was, you would've been more accepting or less depressed about it.

No, out of all the gifts you could've gotten and instead of Mirabel actually getting one, you had the ability to control and create fire. Arguably one of the worst gifts one could've gotten if it wasn't used properly.

And see, you are a five year old child. Obviously, you'd be going out of control and possibly hurt the people around you if you weren't careful enough with your abilities. What if you hurt Mirabel? What if you hurt your parents? What if you hurt any of the Madrigals?

What if you hurt Camilo?

You couldn't bear the thought of hurting someone because you can't control fire. The problem is; literally the first thing you did when it was revealed you can create fire is lose control. If it wasn't for Bruno stepping in and knowing how to calm you down, you probably would've already burned Casita down to the ground.

Mirabel's night was ruined because of you.

It's not like things got better after you got your gift. Your parents refused to let you stay with the Madrigals. Heck, they even prohibited you from talking to any of them after what happened. They were just afraid of something else bad happening to you if you continued to associate with them.

Because of this, you greatly missed talking to Mirabel. She always talked about wanting to have a gift when she knew about it. You wondered what she would've thought about you getting a gift instead of her. The more you thought about it, the more you felt worse.

You also missed talking to everyone else. When you peeked outside of your bedroom window, the Madrigals still go to town, but they just acted as if nothing happened on Mirabel's ceremony. You felt sad that it seems like they're not even making the effort of trying to talk to you, but also understood why.

The only Madrigal who tried to talk to you was Camilo. Knowing him, he wouldn't stay still if his best friend was troubled. Abuela told everyone else to not pay any attention to you or even pay you a visit since things might just get worse, but if Camilo just ignored you, what kind of a best friend would he be?

He tried his best to comfort Mirabel too. He always loved his cousin and wanted her to cheer up, even if there was a possibility that they couldn't see you anymore. He tried making funny faces or cracking up some jokes to make Mirabel smile, and while she did appreciate them, she immediately frowns when remembering how scared and confused you were.

It didn't even matter if she didn't get a gift. She just wanted you to be alright.

When Camilo got the message that Mirabel wanted to be alone for a while, he hesitatingly obliged and went to town with everyone else. Pepa and Felix tried to cheer their son up after he was just told to not communicate with his best friend anymore. He wasn't even smiling as much or shapeshifting as much to help the other villagers. When he smiled, it looked incredibly forced and pained.

Camilo's green eyes would always drift over to the closed window where your bedroom was with a frown. Every morning, they would always be open with you leaning your head against the palms of your hand, comfortably watching the Madrigals help the town with an admiring look on your face. It didn't sit right with him that those windows were just closed now,