Fatigue
Amity’s POV
On Monday, Amity asked her siblings to drop her off early. Amity, Willow, and Gus had all spent the entire weekend trying to contact Luz but there was no response to any of them. Not even a read receipt. Willow was particularly upset and had all but cursed Amity out for being the reason that one of her closest friends refused to talk to her. And she was right to be upset.
Amity took a breath as she stepped out of the car, an umbrella barely keeping the freezing rain off of her as she trudged through the snow sludge caked over the parking lot. She hoped that Luz would be okay biking up the hill to get to school.
It was the week before winter break which meant that they had midterms due. Amity hadn’t been concerned, and knowing how smart Luz was, Amity doubted that she was worried either. At the moment, Amity’s plan was to talk to Luz when she came to school. Luz usually came in early because she had to be more careful on her bike especially with weather like this and Amity was going to intercept her at the first opportunity.
When she finally got through the front doors, the first thing she heard was shouting. No other students or staff were around yet so it wasn’t that hard to tell that it was coming from the front office. The sound was muffled by the frosted glass but Amity could make out someone saying “How could you not know what was going on in your own school!?” The woman speaking seemed to have a hispanic accent.
Then she could hear the vice principal respond in a voice that was clearly trying to calm the first speaker down. “Ma’am, I’m sorry but we were short on chaperones, if your daughter gives us a name then we can try to look into doing an investigation but that part of the school hasn’t been used in decades, there aren’t even any cameras down-”
Vice Principal Clawthorn was interrupted by phone ringing and the other woman inhaled sharply through her nose. “I’m sorry. I have to take this, but this is not over.” The woman said, she sounded bitter.
“I’ll do what I can to ensure that accommodations are made for this week's testing.” The Vice Principal responded quickly.
The door to the office nearly crashed into Amity as it flew open and a short woman in glasses and a nurse’s uniform marched out holding an old cell phone up to her ear. As Amity took a step back in shock, the woman’s face shifted from frustration to apologetic. “Oh, sorry dear,” she whispered, reaching out a hand to help steady Amity, then returning to her phone conversation. “No. Yes, I’m on my way now. I had to run an errand…” The woman rubbed her eyes under her glasses as she walked on. She had a very familiar look of exhaustion to her.
Amity watched as the front door closed behind her, and tried desperately to convince herself that she wasn’t Luz’s mother.
Amity pierced her lips as she took a seat in the lobby. Who was she kidding, of course it was.
The way midterms were set up, they were supposed to have two each day throughout the week with Friday off. Precalculus was the first midterm she had and Luz would have it too. Amity waited for as long as she could in the lobby but eventually she had to go to the classroom. Willow was seated in her usual spot by five-of the hour. She looked up expectantly as Amity entered the room but quickly registered the distressed look on the other girl’s face and her demeanor returned to a much more sullen expression.
Boscha waltzed into the classroom with thirty seconds to spare. She paid no attention to Amity or Willow as she stuck her gum beneath her desk and took out a crappy pencil.
Luz didn’t show up at all.
Luz’s POV
Luz woke up with a retching cough that shot pain through her ribs and deep within her chest. She’d barely managed to lean over the side of her bed before the glob of green mucus that came up spilled from her lips into the trash can that her mom had brought over from their bathroom. At least Luz hoped it was green, even with the windows open it was too dark outside to really be able to tell.
Luz coughed up her lungs for what felt like an eternity until finally collapsing back onto her bed gasping and sputtering as she struggled to breath in spite of the protests of her bruised chest and stomach. A shiver rippled over Luz’s body, her skin was clammy with a sheen of sweat and the pillow and sheets on her bed were cold and damp beneath her.
Grimacing, Luz wrapped her arms around herself. She must have kicked the blanket onto the floor at some point while she was sleeping but she was too tired to reach over and grab it from wherever it had landed.
Luz let out an exhausted breath that turned into another fit of coughing. After her mother had calmed her down and bandaged her up after the dance Luz had practically collapsed into bed and had woken up the next day sick.
She’d gone in and out of consciousness more times than she could count to the point that she wasn’t even sure what day it was anymore. During a rare occurrence of Luz being able to stay awake long enough to choke down some food that she had no appetite for, her mom had told her that she had a pneumonia, probably as a result of walking home in the freezing cold after receiving the beating of a lifetime while being under an insurmountable amount of stress. Her mother had informed Luz that her only priority was to rest and recover, which was a good thing because Luz really couldn’t bring herself to do anything else.
At one point that weekend, she’d woken to her mother shouting in the other room followed by the voice of a very apologetic sounding Eda. Luz couldn’t make out exactly what was being said and passed out again before she could try to make sense of it anyway. When she asked her mom about it later, all Camilia said was that Eda was giving her a few sick days off of work until she was ready to go back. Luz had a feeling there was more to the story but didn’t have the energy to delve deeper. Luz wasn’t sure exactly how long ago that was but she had a feeling she’d slept for a while after that.
Luz must have fallen asleep again after her coughing fit because when she woke up again it was to the feeling of something stroking her hair. She flinched away from the contact before opening her eyes and seeing her mother sitting at her bedside. It was still dark out but her mother had turned her desk lamp on to be able to see better.
“Lo siento, mija. I didn’t mean to scare you.” Her mother’s voice was low, probably trying not to startle her any further.
Luz let out a breath and relaxed back onto her pillow. “It’s o-” a series of coughs tore through her chest as she struggled to form words. The bruises on her stomach and ribs screamed at the sudden movement, leaving her curled in the fetal position as her body riled in agony. Her mom stroked her back throughout the ordeal and Luz felt much more comforted by its’ presence now that she knew who was touching her.
Once Luz’s lungs had finished clearing to the best of their ability, Luz slowly uncurled and tried to get into a somewhat comfortable position. As Luz straightened herself out, her mom readjusted the blanket to cover her properly again. She must have picked it up from the floor. A few moments after Luz finally settled back down, Camilia brought her hand over to a bowl on Luz’s desk. “Are you hungry at all, carino?”
Her mouth felt dry as she looked at the bowl. Logically, she knew that it had been a while since she’d last eaten but the thought of putting anything in her mouth at that moment made her feel nauseous. Slowly, Luz shook her head and Camilia nodded solemnly before dropping her hand back into her lap.
“Well, I’ve made some soup for you when you’re ready.” Camilia wrung her hands for a moment before continuing to speak. “I spoke to the Vice Principal earlier today, well, yesterday, I suppose. She’s going to have the teachers email you with take-home versions of the tests and assignments, I believe they’re going to be due at the end of the week but if you need more time I’ll speak to her again.” She reached out and ran a hand down Luz’s face, using her thumb to wipe away a few droplets of sweat. “Luz, they… they can’t do anything about the other problem if you won’t say who did this.” Luz pierced her lips and averted her gaze but it wasn’t long before her eyes drifted back to her mother’s face. Her vision was getting a bit blurry but she could still make out the love and fatigue and worry in her mother’s eyes. She hated that she was the cause of the latter two. The older woman offered a soft smile, realizing that she probably wasn’t going to get her daughter to speak any further that night. “Please, mija, take your time getting better okay?”
Luz’s eyelids were growing heavy again and the last thing she felt before blacking out was her mother’s lips feeling cool against her forehead.