you kept me like a secret [lumity au]

i remember it (All Too Well)

Just between us, did the love affair maim you, too?
'Cause in this city's barren cold
I still remember the first fall of snow,
and how it glistened as it fell.
I remember it all too well.

-

As expected, Luz woke up the next morning feeling awful.

The couch was stiff and warm beneath her, and the heat seemed to fill her with a thick nausea. Her mom called off of work that morning to take care of her. She spent the entirety of the day on the couch, curled into a stiff ball and refusing to move into her room--no matter how many times her mom begged her.

"It's more comfortable there, mija," she tried to reason, "you'll strain a muscle from sitting like that!"

Luz simply nodded, said she'd move in a bit, and continued to lay there.

Her cold had faded by the time the next day rolled around, and Luz begrudgingly got up to shower and change for school.

Her mom wasn't entirely convinced she was feeling better, based on her tired, disheveled appearance. But Luz knew she'd have to face the familiar setting eventually.

Besides, maybe she'd see Amity. Maybe Amity would run up to her, apologize, and say she was just stressed. They were still friends--they were still something more.

Snow had fallen into thin layers on the ground, the substance barely a hindrance as she walked

But when she arrived at school that day, Amity wasn't in her usual seat, and she disappeared any time Luz tried to approach.

Classes stretched on to days, and days stretched on to weeks.

Luz never got the opportunity to talk to Amity.

"I just don't get it," she vented to Willow one day at lunch, "everything was just so... perfect, and now she won't even look at me!"

Willow could only give a simple, sympathetic condolence, "The Blights aren't very nice people," she explained, "give it time. Amity will probably realize that she needs you just as much as you need her."

Luz hooked onto that small piece of hope, holding it close and simply praying that things would go back to normal. They could work it out, somehow.

The week before Christmas break, Luz rarely saw Amity at all.

It was the first-semester finals, with each class period being split into longer, drawn-out time slots to allow time for the teachers to distribute the longer, winter finals. The last class on Friday was Creative Writing, with Eda.

...and Amity, although she wasn't present. Luz honestly hadn't expected her to be. Eda's final was usually an average of all of their prior test scores. Eda preferred to make the dreary exam period before winter break a bit more fun.

The "fun" consisted of a generic, store-bought cake and watered-down hot chocolate while the class provided commentary on an old, cheesy Hallmark Christmas movie.

The other kids laughed and criticized every detail of that year's chosen movie, but all Luz felt while watching the stereotypical meet-cute of spilt hot chocolate and last-minute flights was jealousy.

She was jealous over a terribly-written holiday movie .

So Luz remained quiet, ignoring Eda's concerned glances, and drank her cheap hot chocolate.

She might get a stomach ache later from the lactose in the drink, and couldn't find it in herself to care.