If you want to read ahead, go ahead and check my Ao3. It's complete on there.
The first thing on Luz's to-do list when she got home was show the pictures to her Mother, who should already be home from work.
Unfortunately, it slipped her mind as she'd gotten distracted while carrying on a conversation with Amity. The topic was only mentioned when her Mother entered the lounge and asked about the CD left on her desk.
"Luz! What is this?" Camila sounds tired, but curious. She knows that if it was left on her desk, it was important, and she would make time for it.
The air in the room becomes tense almost immediately, Amity and Luz exchange nervous glances before the tanned girl tentatively takes the CD from her Mother. "It's… About Lucia." She murmurs, inserting it into her laptop, "Willow's sibling took a photoshoot, these were some of the pictures." Luz informs, bringing up the pictures and nudging the computer over to her bewildered Mother.
A heartbroken gasp fills the silence in the room, followed by hesitant clicking. Luz can see her Mother's fingers shaking as she attempts to keep her composure.
"Their deaths were linked, Miss Noceda," Amity whispers as the woman clicks through the pictures, tears gathering in her eyes, "Luz and I, we believe that Lucia was protecting my sister, Amelia, from being brought back to an abusive household…" As Amity says this, the nurse stops and reaches up to remove her glasses, placing a hand over her eyes.
The picture lastly displayed on the screen is one of Lucia, maybe a year younger, sitting on the Hexide bleachers. She's wearing her signature, oversized green jacket and hair is grown out around her shoulders; she's hunched with her arms crossed over her knees and she's wearing a slightly annoyed, but amused smile on her face.
Above her, Amelia is leaned up against her with her elbow using Lucia's head as an armrest, her hair is a natural auburn, wild and unruly, the girl is sporting a playful smirk and she's wearing what looks to be a soccer uniform.
Lucia's expression matches up with the situation, almost reading 'yes, this is my girlfriend, don't ask why'.
Camila lets out a choked laugh, her voice laced with grief and heartache. "Protecting someone she cares about… That sounds just like her." She says with a forcefully happy tone, she puts her glasses back on and dark eyes stare at the picture on the screen. Luz follows her gaze and releases a sigh, Amity rests her hand on her back to offer silent support.
What they believed to be the truth was out.
That's the closure they've been needing.
The day after the collaboration, approximately two hours into the new day, a new topic quickly spread through the internet regarding Amity Blight's secret girlfriend. The chatter extends to the schools and made their way to several other social media platforms, sharing the new picture that the girl had posted to every website they could get access to as an attempt to locate someone, anyone , who may recognize her even in the slightest.
Amity's blog has been receiving email after email, some people forcing themselves into their DMs and claiming that they know who the silhouette in the picture is. All of them were wrong, of course, but Amity wouldn't have even responded had they been right.
The picture in question was one Amity had taken with Luz at Wingston Cliffs, overlooking both of their cities.
The familiar silhouette of Amity stands facing the mysterious girl, whose shadow was too dark to be recognizable by those who do not know her personally, with her arms draped loosely around her shoulders. The other girl has her arms around Amity, but due to the lighting of the picture and the darkened filter that Amity had applied, they were not as noticeable.
Both of them had their backs towards their hometown, Amity and her city, Boiling Isles, on the right, and her partner on the left with her own town behind her.
The next picture, swiping right, is taken from a further distance, the bright orange light contrasting their dark silhouettes and making it more difficult for the mystery girl to be recognized. The photo was taken just as the two of them separated from what appeared to be a dance, their arms ascending into the air with their fingers delicately interlocked, Amity facing away from the girl mid-spin as her hair flows like a veil behind her.
The toxic side of Amity's fanbase downloaded the photos and tried to increase the lighting quality to reveal Luz's identity, but when the photos were posted, they both came to realize that the ones trying to expose her were not exactly good at photoshop.
Amity's siblings had commented on the pictures, making a light, playful jab at Amity, and in return, they were questioned whether or not they knew of the Mystery Girl's identity. Emira and Edric, being the pranksters they are, both lead the people on and use reverse psychology, confusing them and spreading conspiracy theories.
Meanwhile, Luz just sat back and watched the internet run wild. She sits in the middle of it, overhearing her classmates' conversations regarding the photos, and occasionally being asked if she was aware of the new pictures. Willow and Gus looked like they wanted to say something when they were questioned, but they'd made a promise to help and keep the secret.
Keeping a secret seemed to be eating away at Gus's conscience, though.
"Yo, Ronan, my dude, how do you feel about Luzer getting a girl before you?"
Luz stops in her tracks and subtly turns her head to listen to the group gathered at the lockers, a chill racing up her spine in fear that someone had figured out that she was the mystery girl.
Another boy with dusty blonde snorts his response, elbowing his brunette twin in the gut. "We don't know that it's actually Luz, Rogio."
Luz frowns and steps away casually, keeping herself out of their sight, but within earshot. She pulls out her phone and pretends to scroll through it.
"Tiffany and I saw in one picture that Amity was wearing a jacket that looks like Luz's."
She recognizes the voice as Layla, the redhead and the cheerleader of the group. Tiffany, the black-haired girl, speaks up next in agreement. "Yeah, and Luz lost that jacket around the same time the picture was posted."
Rogio groans and pushes himself up off the lockers, " Luzer is not Blight's girlfriend. Here, I'll prove it to you." Amber-colored eyes quickly find Luz as the crowds in the hallway begin to become sparse. "Hey! Weirdo!"
Luz lifts her head, falsely startled by the boy approaching her. "Yo." She flashes the peace sign with two fingers as a light-hearted greeting.
"Cut the bullshit," Rogio tells her, coming to loom over her, "did you see Blight's photo last night?"
"Yup." Luz answers.
"Any idea who it is?" He presses.
"Nope."
Layla appears at his side suddenly and Luz shifts her attention to her, keeping her face stoic and neutral as an attempt to hide the amusement swelling inside. "Then why does Amity have your jacket, huh?" Layla claims with a voice as if she'd just busted the world's biggest secret.
Luz raises an unimpressed brow, "My jacket? The green one?"
Tiffany jumps to Layla's other side. "Yeah! Explain that!"
Luz scoffs. "Simple. Not my jacket. Mine has the bi flag on the collar. That one does not . " She turns away from them and pulls her bag over her shoulder, dismissing them. "Goodbye."
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Layla and Tiffany shake their heads and return to Ronan. Rogio, however, follows after her, wanting to get the last word. Annoyance pricks at her, she grits her teeth in displeasure. Luz stops and the boy moves to stand in front of her intimidatingly, she stares at him with a questioning brow raised.
"Yes?"
"Ha, I knew it." He rests himself up against the wall with smugly grins at her, his lips pulled back to reveal pearly white teeth and his brows lift up. The look on his face was almost punchable. Luz bites back the urge and brushes past him, heading towards the lunch room. "You are so way out of her league. Why would Blight like a Weirdo like you who can't pick a side?"
Luz pauses, and against her better judgement, she spins around to face him with a friendly smile. She claps her hands together once, "You're right! Why would she like someone like me? Why would she even consider me an option?" She takes a step towards the taller jock, "It seems to me like you feel threatened by the mere thought." She hums, tapping her chin and gesturing at him as she speaks. "Hm, such a pity, because if anyone is out of her league, it's you. You're not even anywhere near it, anyway! So, I don't understand the concern."
The boy sputters for a moment, taken aback by her sudden confidence.
"Buuut, whoever it is, they should feel lucky." Luz spreads her arms out and shrugs her shoulders nonchalantly before letting them drop back to her sides, "That girl is a damn good kisser," she winks as she says this and faces away from him, waving dismissively, "I mean, I'm assuming." Luz glances back over her shoulder, relishing in the shocked look on Rogio's face, "considering I'm not her girlfriend."
Rogio's reaction is immediate. "See?!" He shouts back to his friends, pointing accusingly at Luz, who turns around innocently. "Did anybody hear that?" The confusion on their faces is laughable, and Luz matches it to make her act more authentic. "You guys heard that, right?!" He faces Luz again, "Did you say what I think you said?"
She tilts her head, "What'd I say?"
He gapes at her. "You know what you said!"
Luz lets out a puzzled noise, glancing between his friends and Rogio. "That I'm not her girlfriend, in that case-"
The jock cuts her off, "No! The part before that!"
Luz's brows crease together, but internally she's laughing so loudly she can feel it reverberating through her mind. The look on his face was absolutely priceless. "What part before that?"
Rogio spins back to his friends, "You guys heard that, right?! Say you heard that!"
They exchange a bewildered look amongst themselves, and quietly utter a 'no', which seems to enrage and confuse the boy even more. "I know what I heard!" He points at Luz again, "You! This isn't over!"
"Of course it isn't." She nudges his finger out of her face, smirking. "See you tomorrow."
With that said, she turns on her heel and walks away, her giggles becoming louder as she puts distance between herself and Rogio.
She can feel Tiffany's eyes watching her.
Amity's golden eyes stare down at the text before her, her feet gliding quickly and angrily across the wet sidewalk as irritation swells within her, reading the words repeatedly with a scowl on her face.
'I'll be late today for our date.' That part was perfectly fine, she didn't mind waiting a few minutes for her girlfriend to show up, just so long as she's informed beforehand. The text that causes annoyance to sting at her every time she looks at it was the one beneath it, and she was going to take care of it.
'Do you mind me asking why?' Amity had replied, wondering if they'd need to reschedule. She was willing to do so if Luz was too stressed, she wouldn't mind just lounging around, watching cheesy movies.
She reads over the last text. 'Nothing too bad, I promise.'
'No, it's okay. You're at Eda's right? I'm on my way.'
She switches her phone off and pauses to wait for the streetlight to change. She can barely hear the roaring of the cars passing up and down the road over the boiling, seething rage building up inside like a volcano waiting to erupt.
Ever since the picture has been released, Luz has told her several times about how her classmates were beginning to take their jealousy out on Luz, despite having absolutely no confirmation of anything. Apparently some girl named Tiffany spread out a rumor across the school, one that happened to be true, but the amount of backlash her girlfriend had received was unbelievable.
Amity had read some of the texts Luz had gotten. Even if nobody seemed to believe the rumor, they saw it as an opportunity to bully her for her 'blatantly obvious crush on Amity Blight, the constant harassment was starting to weigh the bullied girl down.
"I am going to destroy you." Amity mutters under her breath, tense as a rock, her blood boiling in anger, as she pictures the girl responsible for the rumors at the front of her mind. "But first..." She sighs and her shoulders untense, she stares at the house she's approaching.
The girl stops in front of a familiar door with an owl etched into the wood, she breathes in deeply and lifts her hand to knock. The door opens smoothly and she lifts her head to see a tall, scrawny woman with unruly white hair standing in front of her with a tired expression, tension clearly visible across her features.
She recognizes her as Eda.
"Um, hello…"
"Ah, the Blight girl. I saw you coming from a mile away." Eda mutters flatly.
She steps outside and stretches her arms above her head with an audible crack, an exasperating sound that makes Amity grimace.
"Luz is inside. She's fine. Anyway, you take care of the Kid. I need to," she hesitates, glancing around nervously and tightening her lips, an unfamiliar expression comes and goes in a second, "I need to just run some errands. Don't do anything I would do."
It takes a moment for the words to process in the young girl's head, and once it registers, a dark red blush heats up her face and her heart starts beating erratically.
Her breath catches and she clears her throat, stuttering her words out in response, "Oh! Well, uh, you don't… No need to worry about that! We're just- we're not-" she turns away and stiffly faces the house, "Okay bye!"
Amity quickly enters the house, adrenaline pumping through her veins and causing her to tremble. She leans against the door and releases a quiet sigh, breathing in and out deeply as her body slowly begins to relax.
Nobody else needs to know what runs through her mind. Especially not Luz.
She lifts her head up from the wood of the door, hearing a faint music drifting through the old house. Amity pushes herself up off the door and follows it, recognizing the music as one of her girlfriend's favorite songs.
The house smells of pine, and there's something eerie about the way the walls are decorated, but she swallows her discomfort. If Luz felt safe here, so should she. All she really needs to do is give this place a chance.
Coming to stand in front of an oak, wooden door, Amity gently nudges it open with her knuckles and peeks inside. The lights are off and the blinds are shut, the only thing illuminating the dark room is the flickering phone screen towards the center of the room where a mattress is laid out on the floor, blankets haphazardly strung across it.
Recognizing the lump beneath the blankets as Luz, Amity steps into the room and shuts the door behind her with two fingers. It softly slides shut, leaving only a sliver of space between the frame and the door.
"Luz?"
When the girl doesn't reply, Amity approaches the mattress and kneels down, leaning so that she could gently drape herself over her.
Luz is laying on her side with her legs pulled close to her chest, her hair is oily and the darker blotches on the girl's face indicate the mud that she had apparently been shoved into. Amity props herself up with her palms and leans down, brushing the dark hair out of Luz's face.
Brown eyes briefly glance at her before shifting back to the phone screen as the opening of another music video begins to play.
"Hey." Luz finally greets, her voice is quiet and timid. "Why're you here?"
The words startle the brunette. Hadn't she gotten her text?
"I came to see you." Amity answers casually, "My girlfriend is upset, you think I wouldn't care?"
She rests herself across the other girl, Luz grunts and shifts a little bit to accommodate the extra weight, slightly turning over on her back and extending her legs so that Amity could comfortably lay between them.
"Tell me what's wrong?" Amity requests sweetly as she reaches up with one hand to touch her partner's cheek. Luz still isn't looking at her. "Did Tiffany, Emily, or this 'Rogio' boy do something?"
Luz turns her eyes towards her and stares at her for a long minute. A breath escapes her lips, "Tiffany saw the pictures you posted and combined it with the school's crack theory that I was your girlfriend."
Amity tilts her head, "But, it's true. What's so hurtful about that?"
Luz hesitates, tensing up and gritting her teeth. "...They don't believe it." She replies with a pained hiss. "I didn't expect them to, but they said I'm so in love with you that I learned ballet. Then, they remind me that someone like me wouldn't even have a chance ..."
The way Luz speaks causes irritation to stir inside of Amity's chest. They were mocking her, using her 'crush' as evidence as they thoroughly didn't believe that Luz is anything to Amity.
When in reality, she's one of the most important people in her life. Why did her classmates care so much about whether or not Luz dated her or not? It's none of their business!
"It made me wonder why you're actually with me…"
The words cut through Amity's bitter thoughts like a blade, briefly stinging at her heart. Amity sighs and pushes herself up, shifting her weight to one hand as she reaches up and she subtly grasps Luz's chin to look at her.
"I'm with you because you're the most amazing person I know, and I care about you." She leans down and her lips connect with Luz's forehead in a quick, loving kiss. Amity then taps her forehead against Luz's playfully, she smiles "I'll take care of it, okay? Why don't you go get cleaned up?"
The other girl's fingers brush across the back of her neck affectionately; Amity ignores the brief shudder that crawls up her spine and leans back so that she could look Luz in the eyes again. The faint sparkle is back in her brown eyes, but there's still sorrow written in her expression.
Amity would destroy the person responsible for this.
"Okay…" Luz replies at last.
Amity sits up off of her, folding her knees beneath her with her hands resting in her lap. The other girl rolls over, detangling herself from the blankets with little difficulty. She kicks the blankets back onto the mattress and starts for the door.
She walks with a heaviness in her step.
Once Luz is out of the room, Amity reaches for her phone and unlocks it. She glances between two apps before opening her blog, tapping on the mobile screen recorder icon she'd installed on the front of her page. She waits a few minutes, watching the numbers of viewers increase as her live recording is spread from platform to platform.
After another minute or two, she finally looks up at the camera and narrows her brows. "First of all, you all want to know who my girlfriend is?" She practically says with an annoyed voice. "Fine. I'll reveal at approximately three-thirty, tomorrow."
Cheers immediately erupt through the chat.
"Secondly…"