Work Text:
"Mme. Lavillant, I need you to explain to your daughter it will be no good for anyone to have her come into the ER with an injury because she didn't feel it was worth informing the school of her condition."
"Ma fleur, I need you to be safe. I don't want you to leave all your friends from school forever, but if you can't do the bare minimum to stay well, I'm not going to have another option."
"Rose, you can't keep pushing yourself like this."
I just have to get over this, she thought to herself every single time.
She was honestly starting to get a little tired of all those comments remarking how she was supposed to take breaks, how she was supposed to allow herself to rest whenever she needed, or how it was fine for her to request accommodations others didn't need.
She didn't want to have to deal with another surely new nurse at school who would freak out and call an ambulance the moment her heart rate skyrocketed and her eyes shut as she fell unconscious against the examination table, only for her to wake up to an emergency team rushing her to the hospital again.
She wasn't going to take written works over time with her friends at the pool or the park where they had their sports classes. Even less so if those works did nothing but grant her mother a few more hours of reassurance that Rose wouldn't crash in the middle of the running track out of a sudden tachycardia.
She would rather go back to spending half her waking hours passing out than take thirty-page-long homeworks that would surely drain her of whatever energy she still managed to have left by the end of the day.
All because Monsieur Laurent refused to give whoever needed different accommodations options so as not to fail his -sadly mandatory- class.
She had learned from a young age that if she needed a medical exam for something and her symptoms were going to stay in records, it was better not to lie and simply ask the doctor in charge with her best puppy eyes to simply change her status on the paper as "physically able to exercise" instead of listing off the multiple conditions that would almost surely leave her on the bench for the rest of the school year in sports class. Faking being on her period was her go-to whenever she really felt about to pass out at any given second should her heart rate be raised for even a few seconds.
Nobody questioned that.
Nobody treated her differently for that.
It was easier that way.
Still, it wasn't as if she tried resting every single time she felt a dizzy spell coming. The nurses at school already knew her by name and average blood pressure range, even as much as she tried avoiding going to them every time her vision started to black out as she stood up.
Her friends had had to pick her up from the floor more than once, hurrying to find help after all.
Juleka had held an expression of concern Rose had never seen on anyone else every single time. Her features contracted with worry every time Rose leaned on her shoulder during class after having sat down for hours, Rose's pulse racing irregularly. Her jaw clenched whenever her girlfriend held her hand more tightly while getting up from her seat. Whenever they walked across the school to get to their next class and Rose grabbed her arm for support on really bad days, the short walk enough to leave her breathless and dizzy.
The day their sports teacher told them students would be divided in "healthy" and "limited", with the later being anyone who had any type of condition that could impact their class activities, they both exhaled deeply with relief.
Juleka, because she would finally not have to see Rose fainting the entire afternoon after their class.
Rose, because as much as she tried to not let anything stop her from being positive and bubbly, sometimes it was a little too much even for her.
The moment M. Bernard announced those in the limited group would have to turn in endless written works since, in his words, "it is too much work to think of different activities for them", and he wasn't willing to put in so much extra effort, Rose was grateful she had been foggy-minded enough not to raise her arm in time.
She tried her best not to make it evident how relieved she was to have lied about her health every time the teacher demanded the written work from her classmates. Every time she saw the dark circles under Nathaniel's eyes thanks to his flat arches, Nino's texts in the class groupchat past midnight for a week before the due dates after admitting to his asthma, or Sabrina's refusal to do Chloe's homework for days when they had one due, she was grateful for not raising her hand. For not mentioning that little detail.
She could take continuously fainting twice a day. After all, she was used to. But losing so much sleep- it would leave her in a never-ending circle. She fainted more when sleep deprived. She could do less if she fainted the entire evening. She would have to pick up extra assignments to compensate for those she couldn't finish on time.
She was grateful for not raising her hand.
However, every time they went on the track, the teacher would be behind her back, questioning why she was taking so many breaks when he asked them not to. She would explain her shortness of breath, as something temporary. The teacher blamed it on kids nowadays being too lazy for their own good. That it was the reason so many kids claimed to be disabled nowadays. That it was all in their minds, as well as the secrets to a healthy life.
The day she asked the teacher to allow her to sit down, her vision already blacking out and her ears ringing louder than her own voice as she spoke in short, breathless phrases, the only answer she got back was the one she had spent a long time living by.
"Just get over it." She fought her hardest before giving in to the darkness, blurry flashes barely making it to her brain before she was consumed again.