Chapter Text
A yawn escaped Amity’s lips as she slowly exchanged her books. Staying up all night dancing and studying for the upcoming midterms during the weekend probably wasn’t her best idea. She caught a glimpse of herself in the tiny mirror she kept in her locker; for someone who’d pulled an all-nighter the night before, she didn’t look too bad.
Reaching a hand up, she moved a strand of her lavender hair away from her face and wiped off the excess gloss from her lips. It took her a minute longer to process what it reminded her of, but when it all came to her, her face went bright red. Closing her eyes, Amity took a deep breath that didn’t help with the swarm of butterflies that now lived in her stomach every time she looked at herself in the mirror.
As if her thoughts didn’t already keep her up and distracted her from her studies, she couldn’t stop thinking about homecoming. More specifically, what almost happened with a certain someone. It hadn’t left her mind all weekend, even if she pushed it aside to try and focus on memorizing the order of the electron configurations (that test was probably going to be one of the hardest she has ever had to take).
How could she push it aside completely, though? It wasn’t an easy thing to forget considering the light tension that lingered afterwards…
Groaning, she basically slammed her head against her locker’s door as if it would help halt the looping thoughts in her brain. The noise definitely brought eyes her way, but she didn’t care enough to be embarrassed. She sighed and pulled herself away, finishing her book exchange. Once done, she closed her locker and swung her bag over her shoulder, ready to turn around and walk away. Before she could, however, she stumbled back, having to catch herself as someone ran into her.
The action irked her more than any other time anyone had bumped into her. It was possibly due to the lack of sleep (which didn’t let her think straight) and before she could think about what to say, an automatic response came out of her mouth. “Watch it, nit-“ she started, but cut herself off when she saw who had almost knocked her down.
“Ah, shit!” Luz exclaimed and she was on the floor. It took a second for Amity to register the mess of papers that was in front of her. Ignoring the fast beating in her chest (and the fact that she was about to insult her crush accidentally), she knelt down and helped Luz gather all her stuff. She carefully aligned all the papers she got and stood up, followed by Luz a second after.
“Hey,” she greeted awkwardly as she handed the papers back to her crush.
“Hey! Sorry about that,” Luz replied, slightly breathless.
“Are you okay?” Amity asked with concern.
“Yeah, I’m fine, just-“ Luz took a deep breath, stopping her upcoming ramble. “I forgot I have to turn in my research paper draft and I have absolutely nothing on it.”
Amity’s brows rose in surprise. “When is it due?”
“Wednesday,” Luz replied. “I at least have to turn in the topic and the points I’ll be touching on it so I should really get to the library before first period starts,” she rushed out, smiling apologetically as she began to walk away.
Amity didn’t let her get too far, though. “Wait, maybe I can help.”
Luz turned back to look at her, stunned. “It’s really no problem-“
“I’ve done that project three times already, Luz. It’s nothing,” Amity cut her off, offering a reassuring smile.
She watched as Luz’s shoulders slumped slightly. “It’s really okay. You already help me with math and I don’t want to bother you,” she said bashfully while looking away and Amity would be lying if she said she didn’t think the reaction was adorable.
“You don’t bother me at all, Luz,” Amity giggled. Noticing Luz was still unconvinced, she added: “I was heading to the library anyway so maybe we can hang out there and if you really need the help, I’ll be there.”
“You sure?” Luz asked, her voice quieter, but way less rushed. At Amity’s nod, she sighed contently. “Okay.”
“Great,” Amity beamed. “Let’s go.”
———
Education…
Mental illnesses…
Ark…
Ark?
Luz blinked twice, shaking her head to refocus her vision on the words. She had read the same one repeatedly, unable to understand it. Art… that’s what it said . The drowsiness from the previous sleepless night was starting to get to her.
And how could it not? Her mind was training to be in a marathon with all the thinking it’d done during the weekend. It was agonizing, even if the thoughts weren’t exactly bad…
Shaking her head again, she pushed the preparing-to-run thought away; she needed to focus and get this draft done ( if she was finally able to pick a topic). She looked back to the guideline in front of her, continuing to read the suggested topics her teacher had listed for them.
Climate change…
Economics…
Discrimination…
Pretty skater girl…
Her gaze had shifted away from the guideline and to the girl next to her without realizing. Luz watched as Amity basically had her face buried in the books in front of her and took notes with her pink pencil. She was concentrated enough to not notice Luz’s eyes on her.
Luz tried looking away, but it ended up being more difficult than other times. She knew why and she could feel the thoughts worming their way up from the cage she’d been consistently trying to lock them in.
We almost kissed .
It felt like a morning dream that she’d been woken out of by hearing her mom calling her to get ready for school. The only difference between that and the very annoying interruption at homecoming was that her mom wouldn’t interrupt her dreams on purpose (she would have to ask Willow if it was actually an accident or not later in the day, but that didn’t mean she was okay with it).
But that wasn’t the only thing bothering her at the moment; it was the fact that Amity hadn’t brought it up and was acting completely normal. Luz knew she could bring it up herself, but she didn’t want to risk the possible awkwardness that would most likely come along with it.
What if Amity wasn’t planning on kissing her and she had read the situation completely wrong? What if she ended up confessing and Amity stopped talking to her? No, Amity isn't the type of person to reject someone so harshly… but Luz’s past experiences had engraved that fear in her permanently. She didn’t want to risk losing one of her closest friends because of a stupid crush either (it’d taken her years to finally have friends that were as weird as her, she wasn’t about to risk losing that).
On the other hand… the thoughts were eating away at her brain. What if Amity did want to kiss her? It meant she felt the same way Luz was feeling, right? Butterflies and everything, as cheesy as it sounded?
Courage suddenly filled her nervous stomach and she turned towards the taller girl. She would never know if she didn’t ask, right? What did she have to lose?
“Hey, Ames?”
“Yeah?” Amity looked up from her notes, meeting Luz’s gaze which caused the brunette’s brain to short circuit. How was she so pretty all the time? And by just existing too? It was kind of unfair, if Luz was being honest.
What was she going to say again? Oh, right, the kiss thing. Luz opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Closing it, she tried again, but once again no luck. Why did it have to be so hard? The longer she stared back at Amity, the more the butterflies made her feel queasy and she started to chicken out. Her mind filled with what if’s and nervousness started to fill her senses again. Abort mission, abort!
“Uhm…” she trailed off and forced herself to look away from the intense staring contest they’d unknowingly started. “What topic did you pick for your past papers?”
“Oh.” Amity’s shoulders visibly slumped at Luz’s question. “This is kind of embarrassing, but I did all of them about sports,” she quietly laughed, a hint of nervousness in her voice that Luz caught onto immediately. That wasn’t there when they first spoke in the hallway, right?
Pushing that aside… Intrigued, Luz asked: “Which ones did you do?”
“Rugby, soccer and track,” Amity replied proudly, her usual enthusiasm back. Luz hummed in response and looked away completely, ignoring how cute she found it when Amity got all giddy when sports were brought up. Reading her guideline once again, she looked for a specific word.
Bullying…
Deforestation…
Sports!
“Does skateboarding count as a sport?” she asked with the hint of a smile.
“I think so,” Amity replied. “They did add it officially to the Olympics recently.”
Grinning, Luz grabbed her own pen and started to scribble on a new paper. “Well then. Guess I have my topic now,” she beamed.
Amity smiled, “What are you gonna focus your research on?”
“Good question,” Luz murmured.
Pushing her stuff aside, her fingers grazed over the keyboard and quickly typed in her selected topic. Pressing enter, she patiently waited for the screen to load and soon enough, different links popped up. Luz scrolled through them, reading what each one would offer. History, culture, tricks… Wait, there’s a new video for that one.
As Luz continued working on her paper, Amity returned her attention to her notes. She was glad she was able to help, but she couldn’t help her mind going back to those thoughts. Luz had wanted to ask her something else; her gut told her so, but then she’d stopped. Was it related to that? Why didn’t Luz bring it up? Was she waiting on Amity to talk about it?
The familiar sound of the board hitting concrete snapped her out of her spiraling thoughts. Amity shifted her gaze to the screen in front of Luz and held back a laugh.
“Aren’t you supposed to be looking for something else?” She asked with a teasing tone.
“This is more important,” Luz refuted with the same tone, earning a giggle from the taller girl. Luz’s attention remained on the video, watching the different tricks the people in it were showing off. It made her wonder if she could pull some of those off… “Hey, Ames?”
“Yes?”
“How many tricks do you know?” Luz asked, turning to look at her again. She hadn’t noticed Amity was watching the video as well, having to move closer to Luz to get a good view. Don’t think about it, don’t think about it…
“Oh, uh,” Amity paused, seemingly deep in thought. “I’d say around five or so.”
“And what was the trick you were doing when we met? I know it had ‘flip’ in the name.”
“Hardflip.”
Luz hummed; that trick had looked very interesting when she first saw Amity do it. “How long did it take you to learn it?”
“About a month,” Amity replied.
Luz hummed a second time before a grin spread across her face. “Is the offer to teach me tricks still on the table by any chance?” she asked, her tone very obviously implying she wanted to learn it.
“It is,” Amity smirked. “You have to finish your draft first, though.”
“Deal!” Luz exclaimed, quickly closing the Mewtube tab. “It’s a date,” she muttered under her breath as she started to write down her main points.
Meanwhile, Amity almost passed out when she heard it.
———
“Alright, listen up, rookie!”
“Rookie? Really?” Luz asked with a raised brow, staring at a smirking Amity.
“Do you prefer ‘student’?” Amity asked back, her tone clearly amused.
Ignoring how stupidly cute she sounded, Luz chuckled. “Rookie it is.”
“Good,” Amity grinned. “Now, the most important thing about tricks is being safe. Yeah, you’re probably gonna fall a lot, but it’s important to wear your gear.”
“I’ve never seen you with safety gear, Ames,” Luz pointed out, holding back a snort when Amity playfully glared at her.
“Not the point,” Amity said. “As I was saying, your safety is very important.”
As soon as the words left Amity’s mouth and Luz registered them in her brain, she zoned out, feeling her face heat up. Amity cared about her safety… that meant something, right? Another thought popped into her head and her cheeks felt warmer than before. Right, homecoming…
Not bringing it up in the library probably hadn’t been her brightest idea. The more she dragged it on, the harder it was going to be to talk about. Should she wait for Amity to bring it up? Luz was too impatient for that… Didn’t she have this conversation with herself earlier?
“You got all that?”
“Huh?” Luz snapped out of her trance and looked back at Amity, who was already staring back at her. “I mean, yeah, got it.”
The taller girl stared at her for a second longer before repeating, “You’re gonna get on the board and go slow. Then, try the jump when you reach the end of that bar.”
Luz looked to where Amity gestured and nodded, smiling apologetically before doing as she was told. Placing her left foot down, she pushed herself forward and kept the slow speed Amity told her to keep. Once she reached the end of the low-bar, she jumped, flipping the board under her but stumbled forward as she landed.
“You okay?” Amity quickly asked.
“Yeah, all good!” Luz replied, stepping on the end of her board and picking it up. She rushed back to her starting position, dropping the board and smiled at a worried-looking Amity. “I’m fine, Ames. I’m getting this trick no matter what.”
“Just be careful,” Amity said quietly as Luz pushed herself forward a second time.
———
Luz laid on the concrete floor, her chest rising and falling with each heavy breath she took. It’d been over an hour since she started practicing, but didn’t have any luck getting the trick right. She stared at the sky as she caught her breath, her vision of it getting blocked by purple hair and golden eyes staring back at her.
“You know, there’s a reason why it took me a month to learn it,” she said with a small smile. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Luz breathed out. “Just… need a minute.”
“We can stop if you want,” Amity reminded her for the fifth time. Okay, Luz didn’t actually know if it was the fifth time; she had lost count ages ago.
“I can do it,” Luz repeated.
“I know you can, but you’re overworking yourself,” Amity reasoned, stretching out her hand.
Luz took it and pulled herself up. “Am not.”
Amity rolled her eyes, the hint of a smile threatening to widen on her lips. “Are to.”
“Am not.”
“Are to.”
“Am not.”
“Luz,” Amity laughed. The shorter girl couldn’t help but smile; half because she found Amity’s laugh very pretty and half because neither of them had pulled their hand back. It was a little awkward to just hold their joined hands between them, but the butterflies in her stomach would disagree.
“Okay, just let me do it one more time then.”
“You said that, like, half an hour ago,” Amity pointed out.
“I mean it this time,” Luz laughed. “Please?”
“Fine, one more,” Amity gave in.
Luz grinned, slowly letting go of Amity’s hand (much to her dismay) and picking up her board. Getting on it, she pushed herself forward but didn’t catch that her foot was in the wrong part of the board. As soon as she lifted her left foot back up, the board went forward and she didn’t have time to catch herself.
Luz tripped over her skateboard (and her own feet from the loss of balance), landing face first onto the concrete floor. Groaning in pain, she heard fast footsteps approaching and a hand gently rested on her back.
“Are you okay?” Luz didn’t look up, opting for lazily raising her right hand in a weak thumbs up. “Come on, let me see.”
“No,” she grumbled. Her face stung with the obvious new scratches and she refused to let her crush see her like that.
“Luz,” Amity sighed and moved to be in front of the shorter girl. She gently placed her hands under the mop of messy, brown curls and when she felt skin, lifted Luz’s face to see the damage. Her eyes widened slightly, seeing the scratches mainly on Luz’s cheek and nose.
“I’m never gonna get that trick,” Luz grumbled as she stared at Amity’s reaction.
“Don’t say that,” Amity scolded and helped her up. “Come on, let’s get you patched up.”
They made their way to their bags by the recreational area and Amity forced Luz to sit down on the bench. Amity unzipped her bag, getting some towelettes and bandages out. She sat next to Luz who was sitting facing her and tore the towelette packet open.
“This is gonna sting a little, okay?” Luz nodded and Amity placed her hand under Luz’s chin before gently tapping the scrapes on her nose with the towelette. Luz winced, attempting to jerk away, but Amity held her still.
“It hurts,” Luz complained as Amity continued cleaning the wound.
“I know, but you don’t want it to get infected, do you?” Amity reasoned, moving onto the scratches on Luz’s cheeks. “Because I sure don’t.”
“How sweet of you,” Luz grumbled, watching as Amity rolled her eyes at her. “Thank you...”
“No problem,” Amity nodded, finishing cleaning all the wounds. She got the bandages she always carried in her bag opened and placed a red and blue one on Luz’s face. “There.”
Luz sighed as Amity put everything away. “I’m not getting the stupid trick anytime soon.”
“Yes, you are,” Amity cut her negative talk off quickly. “It’s your first day trying, remember? Give yourself some credit.”
“Well, I didn’t see any scratches on your pretty face when you were learning it,” Luz mumbled, eyes widening when she realized she said that aloud. Amity stopped zipping her bag, her face flushing bright red as the words registered. The tension slowly grew between them and neither of them dared utter a word for what felt like hours instead of seconds.
Amity was the first one to break said silence by clearing her throat and turned to look at her crush. “You… you think I’m pretty?” She mentally slapped herself for asking such a dumb question.
Luz cleared her throat, turning to look back at her. “Uhm, obviously? What kind of question is that?”
If Amity wasn’t red enough before, she sure was now. She averted her gaze, her hand coming to twirl a strand of lavender hair that fell over her eyes. “Oh, well… thank you,” she paused. “I think you’re pretty, too.”
Luz felt her face heat up for the umpteenth time since she met the taller girl. She continued staring at her and Amity definitely felt her intense gaze because she looked back and their eyes locked. They stared at each other and neither of them wanted to look away.
Luz pursed her lips as she continued the intense staring contest. The subject hadn’t been brought up all day, yet the moment felt… right. There wasn’t anything or anyone that could interrupt them this time since they told their friends to join them earlier, but they were too busy. It was just the two of them this time around. Her eyes unwillingly shifted lower; if she was going to do it, she couldn’t keep stalling.
Fighting through the nerves settled deep in her stomach and her brain and heart’s racing, Luz placed her hand on the small space between them and leaned in, pressing her lips onto Amity’s.
The knot in her stomach untied itself at the contact and it felt like she was kissing Amity for minutes when in reality it was only about three seconds. She pulled away and looked back at the taller girl — who was staring at her with wide eyes and lips parted in surprise. Neither of them spoke, too stunned by what just happened to even make the tiniest noise.
However, the long silence made dread start to torment Luz’s mind. Had she read the situation wrong? Did she mess everything up because of her impulse? Amity simply stared at her and although she didn’t look mad or disappointed, it felt like everything was messed up.
Luz opened her mouth to start profusely apologizing, but nothing came out. Come on, words, out of all the times you can fail me! She closed and opened it again, having the same problem over and over. Panic started to settle in after the third time she tried, but it was replaced with confusion when she felt a hand on her cheek.
Before she could process both hands now holding her face, Amity’s lips were already on hers.
The second kiss lasted longer than Luz’s initial and impulsive peck, which explained why Amity just stared for a good while; she was processing what had happened. Placing her free hand over one of Amity’s wrists, Luz kissed the taller girl back. Warmth quickly spread throughout her body and although she didn’t feel fireworks like those cheesy movies said, the amount of happiness she felt made up for it.
Amity liked her back.
Luz didn’t fuck up their friendship.
Her feelings were actually mutual and that alone was all the fireworks she needed.
Both girls pulled back at the same time to get a breath of air and looked at each other. Their faces were warm and a little nervousness lingered, but the loving look they shared caused two soft, mutual smiles to be shared.
“If you didn’t do it, I was going to,” Amity finally broke the long silence.
“You were?” Luz asked, eyes glistening with hopefulness. It felt like an absolute dream. “Does… does that mean you like me?”
“Gosh, Luz, of course I like you!” Amity exclaimed, gently running her thumb over the bandage on Luz’s cheek. “I… I know it's weird because of the whole you-know-who thing, but I’ve never felt the way I feel whenever I’m around you with anyone.”
“That’s so cheesy, Ames,” Luz smiled, her grip on the taller girl’s wrist slightly tightening.
“Oh, shut up,” Amity laughed, Luz following. “I mean it, though.”
“Well, I like you a lot too,” Luz smiled.
“I was gonna get worried if you said you didn’t.”
The shorter girl chuckled. “I’d be an idiot if I didn’t like such an amazing girl like you.”
“Now who’s the cheesy one?” Amity said with a smirk.
Luz giggled and moved her hand from Amity’s wrist to her cheek. “I guess we both are,” she whispered as she leaned in and pressed her lips to the pretty skater girl for a third time.