Chapter Text
A cold wind pulled leaves from the towering trees outside the library, many of them dropping down in front of my feet and in my hair.
I had already been assaulted by frigid winds, splashing water from cars driving into puddles, and now leaves! Couldn’t I just have one pleasant walk to the library? The past few times when I had walked, one thing or another disrupted me. Last week it was the twins, and before that it had started pouring as soon as I had gotten my books and started home.
Brushing the rust-colored leaves from my hair, I started up the stairs to the front doors of the library. My homework was clutched to my chest since Em had borrowed my bag without asking again, and I couldn’t find another one.
My hopes were that I could come to the library to escape the current war zone which is the fight between the twins and my parents over Halloween and to get some work done. Every year my parents pushed and fought for the twins to give up on participating in the Halloween fest because it gave them ‘a bad family image,’ but I think they just didn’t like it when the twins did anything they were actually passionate about.
Walking into the library was like a breath of fresh air. The wind was gone, replaced with a beautiful indoor heating system, and there was basically no noise except a few stray whispers from librarians and studiers.
I made a beeline for the first open table I saw, a round one in the science section, and dropped my books down with a clatter. An older girl gave me a glare at the noise, and I scrambled into my seat, ducking my head in embarrassment.
My AP Chemistry book had fallen right to the section I was working on, and I pulled out my homework sheets. When Ed said that AP chem was hard, he really wasn’t kidding. It seemed that lately all of my time had been spent on trying to figure out what the heck was going on at any given point. It was particularly horrible since last year chem had been my best class, and this year I was already getting B’s and C’s. Just another thing for my parents to yell at me about.
I quickly fell into a rhythm of reading and taking notes. Each section seemed to take years to translate into understandable English, and before I knew it, I had been at the library for a little under an hour.
My phone buzzed, snapping me out my focused state, and I clicked the on button. Ed had sent me a photo. This was going to be good. He had taken a selfie in the living room, Em screaming at mom, both of them with mouths open and bright red faces, while our dad was standing in the middle of the floor holding fake guts with a rather sour expression on his face. Ed was grinning like a madman, and I chuckled at his caption, “Family bonding!”
After replying to the text, I decided it was time to take a break, stretching quietly in my seat.
My thoughts began to wander back to the girl from the haunted house. Even though it had been two weeks, I kept finding myself going back and re-living those moments where it had been just the two of us flirting, and then the inevitable internal groaning at how I had ended the conversation. Once or twice or, lets face it, at least a few hundred times, I had considered going back and trying to find her again, but when I looked up tickets, they were sold out for the season.
I couldn’t help but daydream about alternative universes in which I had asked for her number, or maybe she had gone to school with me, but I didn’t live in one of those better realities. God, I didn’t even have her name to find her anyway! Embarrassingly, my google search history was filled with attempts of trying to find the girl with nothing more than a vague description of what she looked like, and even that wasn’t completely accurate since I had only seen her in a witch’s costume.
After a while I kind of gave up on figuring it out. If the universe would have us cross paths again, we would. I kept holding onto the hope that we might.
I was so lost in thought about the young witch that I didn’t notice someone walk up behind me.
“Hey, you dropped your flannel.” A familiar voice whispered from behind me, and I turned abruptly, tearing myself out of my thoughts.
It took me a minute to process the scene in front of me, but when I did, I stopped breathing.
The girl.
More specifically the girl from the haunted house dressed in a cropped hoodie and leggings, holding out my fallen flannel in her open hand. I could tell that she too wasn’t expecting it to be me by the wide-eyed expression on her face, and I couldn’t help but think how cute she looked out of costume.
“T— thanks!” I stuttered, grabbing the article of clothing from her hand.
“It’s you.” She said, looking me up and down a little too obviously.
My cheeks went bright red and I opened my mouth, unsure of what was going to fall out.
“It's you.”
“Amity.”
“Your name is Amity too?” I squeaked, feeling like the universe was playing some twisted joke on me.
The girl broke into a smile and shook her head. “No, you're Amity, right? I’m not, er, my name is Luz actually.”
“Oh.” I giggled to myself, “Oh sorry! Um, hi! Hi, yeah, I'm Amity. Do you want to sit down?”
She gave me an unsure look. “I don't want to interrupt—”
“You're not.” I quickly interjected, “Please?”
Her breath caught on my ‘please,’ and she nodded, walking over and pulling a chair out across from me. I noticed the book she was holding, and perked up in surprise.
“You read the Azura books too?”
Her jaw dropped. “You're a fan?”
“Um, duh, those books are my comfort objects! I re-read them every time I get sad.”
She grinned, “Oh my gosh, me too! I own all of them in hardcover, and get this, I even have a signed copy!”
“No way!” I exclaimed.
“Way.”
We were both beaming, and I blushed. “So, do you like go to school around here or—”
She leaned back in her chair. “Oh, um not exactly. I’m homeschooled, but I might be transferring somewhere soon!”
“Don't meet a lot of cute girls being home schooled, do you?” I asked, praying that she would say no.
Her face went scarlet, “Um, uh, no, no I do not. You're the first.”
My heart fluttered, “You think I'm cute?” I whispered.
She smiled shyly, “You’d have to be blind not to find you cute.”
“Well for what it's worth, you're pretty too. In the witch outfit, or not!”
Her eyes went wide and she scratched the back of her neck. “Yeaaah, sorry about that. Um, it's not the most flattering outfit.”
“You pulled it off.” I shot back.
“I’d let you pull it off me.” She muttered under her breath, and I went red.
For a moment I couldn’t breathe, staring at the cute wide-eyed Latina in front of me. Her soft brown eyes had taken on a sharper look, and she was holding my gaze. Subconsciously, or consciously (I’m not sure), my eyes flicked to her lips. She noticed, turning slightly red in response.
“Was that too far? I feel it might have been too far…” she was leaning back in her chair again and almost fell. Her arms flew out in surprise, and she quickly righted herself, looking sheepish.
“Nope, you're,” I giggled, “you're charming.”
She wiggled her eyebrows, “Oh well then, I guess I’ll keep it up.”
“Keep what up? Falling out of chairs?”
She gasped dramatically, “You said it was charming.”
“You’ll hurt yourself.” I pointed out.
“Yes,” she agreed, “But I will have done it while charming a pretty girl.”
“Then consider me charmed. Just, please, don't break yourself before I've had the chance to take you out to coffee or something.”
Her attention snapped back to me and her chair slammed down against the carpet.
“Coffee?”
Butterflies filled my stomach again, and I ducked my head to hide my burning cheeks. “Um, well if you’d like to…”
“Yes.” She replied almost immediately.
“Wait re—”
“Do you want to go right now?”
I stopped for a moment and just stared at Luz. She had a lopsided smile on her face, and it made my insides go warm and fuzzy. I sure didn’t believe in love at first sight, but this girl was really starting to get to me.
“You…you want to go out now?” I asked, making sure we were on the same page.
She shrugged, “I mean I’m not doing anything, but if you're busy—”
“No!” I half shouted, and the entire library looked over at me.
My face resembled that of a tomato, needless to say, a beautiful bright red which would be unnatural for a person, but I was still managing to pull off anyway. Not wanting to face the stares, I sunk down in my seat and plopped onto the floor under the table. Down here, no one could look at me.
Luz plopped down too.
“You're really good at this.” She teased, crossing her legs and getting comfortable.
I groaned, “Leave me alone! I'm embarrassed!”
She grinned, shuffling forward anyway. “Unfortunately, I cannot do that.”
“Why?”
“You're cute when you're embarrassed.” She rose an eyebrow, and I was beginning to believe I would have a permanent blush on my face.
After taking a moment to calm down, I finally felt the anxiety in my chest lessen to the point where I could reach my hand out and find Luz’s. She didn’t even blink, lacing her fingers right through mine, shy smile tugging at her lips.
“Feeling better?” she asked.
“No.” I looked up and she met my eye. “Maybe.”
“Ready to leave under the table or—”
“No.”
“Alright then.” She squeezed my hand slightly, and I shuffled closer to her.
Our heads were already slightly lowered because of the table, and there wasn’t much room, so we were already almost fully pressed against each other.
“Anything I can do to make you feel better?” she asked, turning her head so that her face was centimetres from mine.
I inhaled sharply, eyes going wide at how close we were to each other. If I wanted to—and I really did—I could just lean in and…
“Amity?”
I was so lost in thought that I had forgotten to answer her question, and I snapped back into reality.
“Um, well…” I was staring at her lips, our knees knocking against each other. I could feel her breath on my face, and she smelled like coffee. “I wouldn’t mind if…”
Now she was staring at my lips, and we were both stuck in our spots. I knew she and I were thinking the same thoughts, but she didn’t move in, and neither did I.
“Yeah?” she asked, her voice just a whisper.
“Would you like to—”
I was interrupted by her hand going up to my cheek, softly cupping the skin. She didn’t move in further, and my breathing stopped. One of my hands flew to her waist, and she inhaled sharply too. Still neither of us moved.
“Wow, the electricity is killing me.” She flirted, flashing me a smirk.
“Are you going to kiss me or what?” I shot back.
“God Amity, we’re under a table in a library, that would so be breaking the library rules.” She was refusing to drop my gaze, and it was killing me.
Her hand dropped to my neck and my mouth opened involuntarily. “F—fuck the rules.”
She mocked surprise. “You don't seem like the character to say that often.”
I could barely pay attention to what she was saying anymore, my whole body screaming at me to kiss her. Just kiss her.
“Luz,” I began, having to stop for a moment to calm down, “If you don't kiss me under this library fucking table, I swear to god—”
She smiled, “What’ll you do?”
“I—” my brain was scrambling for words to express myself, but nothing was working. “Ugh, you are so—”
Then her lips were on mine, and it was everything.
I was right from before, she did smell like coffee, and she tasted like it too. My other hand shot to her hair, and I filled fistfuls of it in-between my fingers. Everything was on fire. Every part of my body was tingling, begging to touch more of her, to be touched by her, softly, carefully, holding her in every way I could.
We broke apart and she let out a little whine. I blacked out.
It was the hottest thing she had ever said, and it wasn’t even a word. I kissed her much harder after that. I kissed her until I was sure my lips would be bruised blue, and then even past that. I kissed her until the world all blended together and I couldn’t tell where my lips stopped and hers began.
I had kissed many people before, girls, guys, people who were neither or both, but none of them were like kissing Luz. I barely knew her, and yet she lit something inside of me I couldn’t name. It was like finding a piece of myself I didn’t know was missing, and I would not let it go.
“WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING UNDER HERE!” a voice screeched in my ear, and we broke away immediately.
I turned and was horrified to see the face of Ms. Lilith, the librarian, looking down at me with a sour expression.
“S—studying!” I replied without thinking, and she groaned.
“Yeah right, girls.” She pinched her forehead between her forefinger and thumb, “I don't really want to know what just happened here, but I sure as hell would like for it to never happen again.”
Luz and I scrambled out from under the table and shamefully stood up. Again, the whole library was looking up, trying to figure out what the ruckus was this time, and I face palmed.
“Sorry!” Luz squeaked, and I turned to her.
She was obviously dishevelled, her hair sticking up in all directions, and shirt all ruffled up. She looked really hot, and it took all my willpower not to lean in and pull her back into a kiss. When she caught my eye, she flashed me another embarrassed smile and mouthed, ‘You look like a mess.’
I smoothed down the front of my shirt and rubbed my face slightly. ‘You look worse.’ I mouthed back, and she ruffled her hair to try and get it flatten down.
“So, can I count on you two,” Lilith pointed between the two of us, “to take your shenanigans somewhere else?”
We both nodded enthusiastically, and with one last groan, Lilith turned around and walked back to the main desk. When she was sufficiently far away enough, I rushed over to Luz and punched her arm slightly.
“What was that for?” she asked, rubbing her arm while chuckling.
“For not kissing me when I told you to.” I replied quickly, “Oh, and making noises so we got caught.”
Her jaw dropped and she scoffed, “You should have heard you.”
“Yeah right.”
“Oh, it was like music to my ears.”
“You're just being mean now.”
She tilted her head, “Hey, wanna get that coffee now?”
I took a deep breath and grabbed my books from the table. “I would like that very much.”
She brightened, “I know a place near here actually.”
We started to walk towards the front doors.
“Oh really? Did you happen to stop there before this?”
“How did you know?” she asked, pushing open the door for me to step through.
I shrugged, “You tasted like coffee.”
We both dissolved into giggles.
“Well you taste like…like chemistry homework.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Like you don't know.”
When she slid her hand in mine, the warm feeling in my chest returned, and it felt like everything was clicking into place. This felt like the beginning of something amazing, and I hoped that the beautiful feeling in my heart would never go away.
But I knew that it wouldn’t.