Chapter Text
“Estoy enamorado de ti, Max Hatter. I crave your laugh, I need your stubbornness. I even relish in the way you tease me. When you touch my hand, all the bad thoughts in my head go away. I can stare into your eyes all day if you would let me, and I want to be your boyfriend.”
Luis Madrigal stared at himself in the mirror for a moment longer, flashing his charming grin. “Vale, así de simple.”
He picked up the bouquet of flowers from Wonderland off his dresser and stood up straighter as he headed out the door.
Today was the day. He would confess to Max Hatter.
Thanks to extensive knowledge of Max’s schedule, Luis timed it perfectly.
Max was in the school garden, reading a book under the large oak tree. When Luis arrived, it would be just the two of them.
Luis kept his hands from shaking around the bouquet. He had specifically chosen Max’s favorite flowers— wishing daisies, hyacinths, and fuchsias. Luis had picked, trimmed, and arranged them himself, earning small cuts along his fingers.
He walked past the last few hedges before spotting Max, his heart hammering in his chest, freezing dead in his tracks.
Robbie was already there, his shoulders squared as he faced Max with a bouquet of burgundy roses and purple carnations. His voice carried just far enough for Luis to catch every word.
“—and I know I’m not the most graceful guy, and I talk too much, but I like you a lot, Max. More than a lot.. Will you.. Will you go out with me?”
Luis felt his entire chest tighten, his eyes glossing over.
Max was smiling. He looked so handsome, and his face was painted with soft, surprised delight. It was the same expression Luis had spent months imagining directed at him.
“Yeah,” Max almost laughed. “Yeah, I will.”
The bushes around them exploded.
Red, Chloe, Pink, Hazel, and both Smees tumbled out in a messy, triumphant pile. They were clapping, whooping, and Pink had opened her bottomless bag to start sprinkling confetti that looked suspiciously like shredded tea packets over Max and Robbie. Chloe shouted, “Finally!” and someone else (definitely one of the Smees) yelled, “Pay up! I told you he’d say yes!”
Everyone swarmed the new couple. Max was laughing, a little overwhelmed and cheeks pink. Robbie looked like the entirety of Wonderland along with the keys to the castle had been served to him on a silver platter. The group threw arms around them while congratulation flew through the air.
The bouquet in Luis’s hands suddenly felt ridiculously heavy. He looked down at the unnecessarily bright flowers, ones that were completely useless now.
He stayed half-hidden by the hedges, stuck in place as he watched his best friend flirt with his crush.
Rage surged sharply through his chest, making it impossible to breathe.
He loved Robbie— his best friend, the first person he’d introduced himself to and known at Auradon— but come on. Of all the people. Of all the timing. Robbie had to pick now, had to pick Max, had to stand there looking so in love while Max earnestly smiled at him.
The animosity burned for one long, bitter second before it guttered into something completely cold. Defeat settled Luis like a wet fog.
There was nothing he could do, no dramatic interruption that wouldn’t make him the villain in everyone’s eyes. No way to take back the words that Robbie said and Max had already answered. Like it had been rehearsed.
Luis’s stomach dropped. Every single one of his friends planned this and they didn’t invite him. They’d picked the time, the place, the perfect moment while they omitted telling him. They didn’t leave a space for him in the hedges. He had simply not been included.
The realization landed lighter than his initial heartbreak, but it somehow felt heavier. He wasn’t just “too late”— he had been irrelevant.
Luis Madrigal, who had part of the group who helped save Wonderland, had been forgotten by his friends. He had slipped through their minds as they played matchmaker for the two people he—
“Roses are my favorite.” Max smiled as Robbie proudly handed him the bouquet.
But Luis remembered him saying otherwise.
He realized quickly that it didn’t matter, not when his best friend was pulling the only boy Luis had ever loved into his arms. It certainly didn’t make a difference that Luis knew Max’s favorite flower when he was kissing another man in front of him.
The group clustered around them in a glowing, self-satisfied knot. Nobody noticed. Nobody acknowledged the empty space where Luis should have been standing with them, forced to smile through it.
But he discovered the most painful part of it all was that his friends didn’t do it on purpose. He simply hadn’t been important enough to remember. And he couldn’t even find it in himself to be reasonably angry.
Because Max looked happier. The Hatter had never smiled like that before, certainly not to Luis. Everybody around him was also happy. Robbie was practically bouncing on his heels.
Luis had never felt a jealousy like this before, he never felt jealousy mixed with grief.
He tried to smile for his friends, to be happy, but his face grimaced as a tear slipped past his cheek.
He turned around and headed in the opposite direction. He threw the flowers into the nearest trash can and kept walking.
They all looked happier without him.