Through Your Eyes || Camilo Madrigal

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"Camilo, why didn't you turn in your homework?" The teacher asked at the beginning of class.

Camilo felt every eye in the class turn to him.

Shit.

He had totally forgotten about it. Between chores and Ana, it had slipped his mind. He hadn't even had time to do it even if he had remembered.

"I forgot it, Señor."

"How come?" The teacher asked expectantly.

Camilo had been here before. It didn't matter what he said, the teacher didn't care. This wasn't the first time he had forgotten his homework.

"I was busy yesterday, helping the village-" The teacher cut him off.

"You can't use your title as a Madrigal as an excuse to not do homework."

Carlos snickered, and Camilo felt his face grow hot, his heartbeat steadily speeding up.

"I'll talk to you after school, come to my office."

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Ana glanced over at Camilo. His head was on the table, brown curls spilling out over his face and neck, hands gripping his hair. Ana had only been in school for a day, but she felt that what the teacher had done was extremely gratuitous, calling out Camilo in front of the entire class.

The teacher began handing back quizzes from the day before. He finally got to Ana and Camilo at the back. She glanced through hers. In bright red pen at the top of the page was written: 95%, Fantastic! Glad to have you in class.

Ana smiled to herself and was about to nudge Camilo and show him when she looked over. His head was in his hands, elbows propped up on the table.

And he was shaking.

A drop of water squeezed out between his fingers and slid down his arm.

Was he crying?

Ana glanced at the paper in front of him. In the same red pen as on hers was written: 45%, That's a failing percentage if you didn't know.

She placed a gentle hand on his back. She didn't know what else to do. Tears continued to drip down his arms, and the shaking didn't stop either, but Ana never heard a sound. Camilo was completely silent, not a sob or shaky breath gave him away.

At the end of class, the rest of the students filed out of the room for break while Ana pretended to be shuffling around in her bag. When the last classmate had left and the door banged shut, she turned to Camilo. Grabbing his wrists she pulled his hands away from his face, wet from tears. He didn't look at her. She didn't care. She wrapped her arms around him, holding him tightly until his breathing steadied and his body relaxed.

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Camilo was aware that he was crying. He was aware that he was crying on the shoulder of someone he had met the day before. He was aware that he was crying on her shoulder in the middle of a classroom during break period. But he couldn't stop. His mind had unleashed all the anxiety that he had pushed down the moment he saw the failing grade. He knew he would fail the second the quiz was set in front of him, but it was different seeing the bright red ink himself.