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Summer was getting hotter in the Boiling Isles, and Luz found herself spending more time with her bedroom window open, more time sitting inside it. That was how she spent most nights after Grom - her phone in her hands, her eyes on the stars, and her mind filled to the brim with adventures and excitement and… feelings.
Feelings were the worst.
Luz had expected someone to ask her why her mom was her biggest fear, and she’d tried to think of what she’d say if they did. So far, her efforts had come up empty, and she had quiet, pretend conversations, her hands moving and her face contorting as she tried to convince her imaginary friends just how rational her fear was.
But none of it was that bad, really. Her mom wouldn’t ever hurt her, and her punishments had always been reasonable. If it was something like that, it’d be easy to explain. It wasn’t her mom she was afraid of, exactly. She was afraid of her mother’s feelings, but the words to explain why always got tangled up on her tongue.
She was never really sure how her mom felt about her. Growing up, Luz had always gotten good grades. She was quick to learn, slow to anger. She was friendly. She rarely got into fights - not even the kind where she got picked on, which is something few kids could claim at all.
Sure, it was because no one ever noticed she existed, but that was alright. Good kids didn’t get noticed that much, so it was all proof that Luz was undoubtedly a good kid.
But, like a bad kid, she spent a lot of time in the principal’s office. She was overenthusiastic, dramatic, and creative to a fault, and time after time that dragged her mother away from her busy life and into Luz’s school, with disappointment barely masked in her voice. Mami could see the tired look on her mother’s face, the exhaustion as she tried to convince Luz to be just a little less consumed with creativity.
And with her mom sending her away to summer camp, Luz had managed to find yet another way to be a good kid and a bad kid all at once.
She had made friends, after all. Multiple friends and none of them were imaginary! She was only seeing the principal for good reasons now, after just a little hiccup at the beginning. The hiccup wasn’t even her fault. Even her mother would agree that he was being unreasonable. And, hey she was even prom queen! As a freshman! Well. Grom queen. She even had a parttime job. Now that was responsible.
As long as it was okay to be weird, at least.
When she sat in her window and stared out at a new set of stars, her phone weighed heavy in her hands. She was lying to her mother, but only a little, right? She told the truth about how she was feeling, how things were going. It was just the specifics she was leaving out. Half-lies only half-counted.
“She’s not gonna buy that,” Luz groaned, letting her head thump back on the wall. Her eyes closed, and her stomach ached with guilt every time she sent another lie, every time she tried to explain, to justify, to prove that Luz Noceda was actually a wonderful daughter to have - the kind you could be proud of.
She wanted to believe that all her mom wanted was for her to be happy. She wanted to believe that she would be a witch at the end of the summer - popular and talented and on the path to greatness in this new, magical world. Wasn’t that was Mami had said when she sent her off? She wanted Luz to make friends more than anything else. She wanted her to stop living her life through storybooks and focus on reality.
And she was. Everything was real on the Boiling Isles! She was good at it! With every glyph she found, with every spell she tapped into life, Luz could feel magic buzzing against her fingertips and knew that she was finally in a place where she could be something greater. For once, she felt like she had found a place she belonged.
And her imaginary opponents would always have an argument here. She could see Willow frown. She could see Gus’s face scrunch up. She could see Amity flush with frustration. So why, she could hear them say, are you afraid of your mom?
Her eyes burned and her chest ached, and she curled into a ball as she let her cool phone screen nestle against her chest. There was no way to say the words out loud, but she felt them drum against her mind as the cool breeze swept through the open window.
Because there was always the chance that none of it was true. That was the problem. There was always the chance that her mom said those things because they were the nice way to say what she really meant. Those were the Good Mom things to say, and Mami tried her best to be a Good Mom.
But, maybe, what she really meant wasn’t about friendship or jobs or happiness at all.
There was a chance Luz would do everything right, and she would show her mother how she’d become a hero on the Boiling Isle - beloved and talented and a Good Daughter in every way she could. Her mother would look around this new world, Luz’s new friends and new talents. Her mother would give her that look, barely mask her voice from disappointment, and say, “Mija, why can’t you just be normal?”
And Luz would have no answer for that.