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“C’mon Luz, Amity totally has a crush on you.”
Luz wanted to slap herself into reality: she’d heard those words before. It wasn’t any less painful this time.
“Huh?” was her response. Good, act confused, play it dumb, try and pick up on Willow’s intentions. Perhaps the heat was messing with her mind: the Boiling Isles were especially hot and clammy this time of year, and the afternoon sun beat down on the grudgby field mercilessly.
Willow chuckled. “I’m serious, it’s super obvious. Haven’t you noticed the way she acts around you?”
Luz chuckled back, shrugging. “I dunno, I just … don’t wanna jump to any conclusions, y’know?”
Back in reality, Willow shook her head. “Luz, don’t be stupid. Haven’t you noticed how she constantly blushes and stutters when she’s around you?”
‘Don’t be stupid.’ Not those three words again. Six months and an entire realm ago, Callie’s friends had used that phrase, in the same giggling and playfully exasperated tone that Willow used.
“C’mon Luz, don’t be stupid. Of course Callie likes you!” one of them had snickered. “She talks about you all the time.”
If Luz had been slightly, just a hair, more cynical, she would have wondered aloud why the most popular girl at her high school was crushing hard on an unpopular, geeky, hyperactive girl who had a habit of crossing boundaries unknowingly and who she had shared fewer than two conversations with. But alas,the Luz of Luz’s memory had been too naive, or (perhaps more sadly) too desperate, to see the obvious trap.
In the real world, Luz clenched her fists to stop the tears.
Not this time. Given Amity’s level of popularity, it was already surprising (a pleasant surprise, but a surprise still) that Amity seemingly wanted to be her friend. It was unfathomable, impossible, a patently ridiculous notion, that Amity would be … romantically interested in her.
No.
If there was anything Luz had learned in high school, it was that girls like her didn’t have their crushes run up to them to sweep them off their feet. Especially when those crushes were wealthy, popular, and athletic.
“Nah …” Luz chuckled, hoping Willow wouldn’t pick up on her tense body language. “You’d think she’d be after Skara, like, she’s known her longer and she is way cuter than me, heh heh…”
“Luz…”
“Besides, you’re pretty and she’s known you since you were in diapers practically, so maybe she …”
“Luz…”
“And like, are we even sure that Amity likes girls? I mean, she drew some fanart of …”
“LUZ!”
Luz shut her mouth. Her attempt at holding a smile was weaker now, waning fast.
“Luz, why is it so hard for you to believe me?” Willow said. “Amity has no reason to NOT have a crush on you! You’re smart, funny, cute and you’ve done so much with …”
“Stop it,” Luz said. Any pretense of a smile was gone now. “Stop making fun of me.
If Willow’s face was any indication, those last four words had struck a chord with her.
Thank God there was no one on the grudgby field besides them.
“Luz? Why would I make fun of-”
Because I’m easy to make fun of. I’m just so damn funny.
“L-Luz? Are you crying?”
I’m hilarious. A freak. Loser. Dumbass.
Luz offered a watery smile. “Nope. N-never better,” she said, before breaking down.
Popular girls don’t ask me out. Stop pretending that they do.
Willow persisted, “Luz, please, just tell me what’s bothering you. I know I said something that hurt your feelings.”
Luz weighed her options. She could make something up; perhaps claim that Eda’s illness was making her more emotional than she normally was. It probably wouldn’t be entirely convincing, but it would be better than outing herself as a loser with no friends. But … that wouldn’t explain why she started crying specifically when questioned about a crush, would it? Surely Willow would realize the connection between her revelation about Amity and Luz’s crying.
“Luz?”
Luz bit the bullet. “Why’d you make fun of me?”
Willow was flabbergasted. “What?”
“Why did you make fun of me? I’m not stupid, Willow. I know you’re teasing me by saying that Amity likes me. No way she’s into someone like me.”
“Wha- oh Titan, was it Boscha? Did Boscha make fun of you?”
Luz shook a throbbing head no. “Believe me, Willow, I’ve been a loser long before I met Boscha. There’s a reason I have no friends back home.”
“Don’t say that about -”
“But it’s true!” Luz yelled, her words distorted by tears. “All I ever do is bother people and make things worse for them. I embarrassed Amity, I couldn’t save Eda from her curse, I made you a target for Boscha … I can’t do anything right! I don’t deserve Amity…”
As the words gurgled out her mouth, Luz drowned in her own shame, in her own memories: cheerleaders screaming at her trick with her eyelids, fellow actors screaming as she “disemboweled” herself on stage, students screaming as they streamed from the snakes she had unleashed as part of her book report. With each memory, more humiliating and disgusting than the last, the shame pulled her deeper and deeper down, until there was no further she could go: she was, without a doubt, worthless. Dried tears stained her cheeks, from eyes to chin. Her head rang in pain, so hard that she scarcely felt herself grinding her teeth in stress.
And yet … inconceivably, Willow tried to pull Luz out from those depths. Luz truly didn't deserve friends like her. “Luz, I - I’m sorry you believe that, but you being different from other people doesn’t mean you’re worth less than them. Being weird makes you-”
“Don’t you say it,” Luz coldly snarled. “I’m sick of hearing that and I’m sick of saying that. ‘It’s okay to be weird!’” Her voice took on a shrill, mocking falsetto as she spat out those last five words. “Sure, maybe it’s okay to be weird when you’re smart enough to not go too weird. But I’m not: I can’t see the line between too weird and weird enough, until I trip over it.”
And when she did trip over it, Luz bitterly thought, the memory of tripping never went away. It was always there to pop up when least expected or desired to taunt her, again and again and again. She’d never be free from forgetting that mistake until, paradoxically, it was time for her to make it a second time in some other, asinine, manner.
For once, Willow had nothing to say. There was nothing to say. There was no arguing with the truth. You might as well argue that 2 and 2 together equals 5.
Willow proved Luz wrong.
“Luz,” she said, wilting slightly under Luz’s glare, “I understand that you’ve made mistakes … but hurting someone doesn’t make you irredeemable. Remember how Amity hurt you? How she hurt me?”
Luz opened her mouth, ready to protest that Bump was pretending that he wanted to dissect her, then closed it. Instead of snapping at Willow again, she sniffled. Her glare softened. Willow, undeniably, had something of a point. Even if Luz was somewhat responsible for the situation at Hexside, and Bump had proven himself to be uninterested in harming her, Amity could have easily hurt her in their duel at the Covention. And yet … Luz had forgiven her, had accepted that Amity’s actions did not define her.
Should - should she do that for herself? Moreover, could she do that for herself? Did she even fully understand the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior anymore?
Perhaps she had already learned to understand that line. After all, she’d come to the Boiling Isles, bursting with a determination to prove herself. She was the Good Witch Azura to the Boiling Isles’ Bog of Immediate Regret.
Reality had killed that naivete.
She was no storybook hero, and the Boiling Isles were not a storybook world. Rivals did not turn into friends with a few fancy words, she was not a Chosen One and her actions had consequences. She no longer tried to solve her problems the way a fictional hero would, but her epiphany inevitably came at the cost of incredible pain and humiliation.
And yet … she wasn’t hated. Perhaps it was because, in a world where turning the bones in your right wrist to dust wasn’t uncommon, Luz’s previously catastrophic mistakes could be more easily fixed. Perhaps it was because of Luz's own intellectual and maturity growth as a young woman. At any rate, after some internal reflection, Luz realized that she - hadn't faced the same level of scorn and derision she had back on Earth.
With that realization, Luz’s face slowly stretched into a genuine, albeit shy, smile.
“I’m … sorry I snapped at you Willow,” she said, briefly looking away. “I think I’ll give it a shot. Thanks for believing in me.”
“You got this, Luz!” Willow said, patting her on the shoulder. Luz got to her feet, knowing what she had to do.
***
That afternoon, at their weekly (secret) Azura Book Club meeting, Luz’s mind was abuzz with questions. Should she ask Amity out? How should she ask Amity out? Was Amity wearing new lip gloss? It looked so good on her...
“Did you hear me, Luz?”
Amity. Oh Cramity …
“Oh!” Luz’s own voice, to her horror, hit pitches normally only detectable by dogs. Did dogs exist in the Boiling Isles? Irrelevant, irrelevant … “Hey Amity!”
Luz noted that Amity’s cheeks were scarlet. Willow … may have a point ...
“I think you’re kinda out of it today, Luz. Is something wrong, or -”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Luz began, “I’ve just been thinking … there’s a really cute restaurant in Bonesborough, and … since the weekend is coming up, I’d like to take you there, on a date. If you’re not too busy.”
What followed were the most horrific few seconds of silence in all of Luz’s fourteen years. She did not dare to look at Amity in the face.
“R-really?” came a squeak from Luz’s side.
Gulping, Luz forced herself to look Amity in the eye. Somehow, Amity had become even redder. Her dyed green hair resembled the leafy stem of a tomato.
Luz’s cheeks burned as well, but she remained resolute. “Yeah!” she said, some of her confidence returning.
Amity … seemed to take the question rather well: “O-oh my Titan - holy Titan - I … holy shi- … y-yeah! I’d love to go! T-thank you, Luz!”
Fighting the urge to cry tears of joy, Luz - her heart lighter than air - popped the big question, the one that overshadowed even this one: “So … for our first date … do I have permission to dress like an otter, with a dark side?”
Giggling madly, Amity said, “Sure, Luz. Just be there on Saturday, at three.”
Amity’s good mood was infectious. So infectious that Luz had enough confidence to say this: “Do I have permission to kiss you before I go home?”
Amity’s grin threatened to split her face into pieces, which would have made her far less pretty in Luz’s eyes. At any rate, she managed to give a quick little nod.
“Alright. See you then, cutie.” Luz then kissed Amity on the lips, sending the other girl - the Queen of Hexside, the Regina George of the Boiling Isles - to the floor, twitching and blushing.
‘Who could love me?’ Luz had wondered earlier today.
She had her answer now.