Chapter Text
“You want me to change seats with Sandra?” Amity chokes out, the discomfort in her voice clearly going unnoticed by her professor. Amity wasn’t sure what she expected her professor to ask of her when they called her up to their desk but this was not it.
“Yes, Sandra and Cain keep distracting each other and others around them in class and I’m sick of it, so if you don’t mind, could you do this favor for me?” Her professor says back. But the thing is, Amity does mind. She likes her current seat, it was in the front corner of the class so she had a good view of the chalkboard with no one in front of her to block her view. Plus the boy who sat next to her was really nice and would help her whenever she didn’t understand something. It was also next to a window that had a great view of the forest around the school that Amity likes to look out of from time to time. It helps her feel less like she was in some prison.
But now her professor was about to take that away from her. And what is she supposed to say? No? They’re just going to tell her that it's just a seat and she needs to stop acting childish like every other adult in her life does. “Yeah that should be fine,” She lies.
“Great!” Her professor said with a smile on their face, “Sandra, effective immediately you’ll be changing seats with Amity.”
There were protests from both Sandra and Cain that were quickly shot down by her professor as Amity grabs her stuff from her former desk as she walks over to her new desk in the center of class. Amity sits down and she immediately hates it. She has observed all the kids around her and she doesn’t like them at all. They were too loud and would all rather goof around then actually try to learn anything. Not only that but there’s now several much taller students in front of her, making it hard to see the chalkboard. She doesn’t even have the comfort of the nice view of the forest her old seat has. Amity feels her emotions start to well up inside her. Do not cry. You cannot show weakness in front of everyone. Despite her best attempts to stop them, tears begin to form in the corners of her eyes.
I can’t do this here.
Amity quickly stands up from her desk and runs away from the classroom. She doesn’t even care what her professor would think because she knows their reaction if she breaks down there would be worse than their reaction for this. Amity runs through the halls of Hexside until she finds the locker Luz had shown her that leads to the shortcut room. Amity figures it’s her best chance to be alone at this time. Amity opens the locker and goes into the room, not noticing that she left the locker just a little bit open. Amity scans the room and sees that, luckily, no one was currently there. Amity walks over to the base of the white staircase in the room and sits down.
The dam finally breaks and Amity begins to sob, fueled by a mix of frustration, sadness, and anger. Amity wasn't sure who she was more angry at, her Professor, Sandra, Cain, or herself. As she continues to cry she gets a tingling feeling in her hands. She needs to do something with her hands, something aggressive. Something to help her let all the pent up anger and frustration out. So Amity takes her hands and begins to pull on her violet hair. It hurts. It hurts a lot, but she felt like she was going to explode if she didn't do something with her hands. At this point Amity can barely see through her tear coveted eyes and the only thing she can hear were her mother's words in her head.
Amity Blight quite down!
Amity Blight, use your words!
Amity Blight, look at me when I am speaking to you!
Amity Blight you are an awful child!
Amity's thoughts are interrupted when something jumps on her lap. It helps to ground her for a moment as she wipes enough tears to see what exactly had jumped on her lap. It was Ghost, sitting on her lap looking up at her, blinking slowly. Students were required to leave their palisman in a dedicated room near the entrance of the school so they wouldn’t cause an incident so Amity was left puzzled why Ghost was here until she remembered something. She remembers reading that a palisman could sense when their owner was in distress. Amity wasn’t sure how Ghost had managed to get in here but that didn't matter, she needs her right now.
Still crying, Amity takes her hands from her hair and begins to pet her palisman. It was something for her hands to do that didn't cause her any pain, plus Ghost's fur feels nice and soft between her fingers. And it was helping her calm down. Her mother's voice had disappeared from her head and she was beginning to think clearer. The loud sobs were turning into quiet whimpers. She’s still upset, but she had avoided spiraling further than she had.
They stay like that for a few more moments as Amity's tears begin to stop. As Amity continues to pet her palisman, she can hear her start to purr, it was soft and plesant noise and helps calm her down more to where her breathing was back to normal from the staggered breaths it was beforehand. Her petting soon becomes less aggressive as the feeling in her hands begins to dissipate. When the feeling has fully gone away Ghost stands up and gives out a soft little "merow" to Amity before she leaves her lap and crawls towards the door she had entered the shortcut room from. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she knew that meow had stood for "be right back" so she didn't put up a protest as she left. She trusts her palisman. She still wasn't okay, but Ghost would be back soon.
Hopefully.
So while she waits, Amity curls up, stretches her hands to grab her knees, and begins to lightly rock. She knows her mother would call it childish, but she couldn't really bring herself to care, it makes her feel better, if only slightly.
Luz lets out a yawn as she continues going through the worksheet her oracle teacher had assigned the class to do instead of actually teaching. Everything was stuff she had done on many previous worksheets but somehow even duller this time around. Luz loves learning about every type of magic, but her oracle teacher was obsessed with giving the class pointless busy work, all so she could read some lame romance books. It took all of her strength to focus on her schoolwork.
Luz finishes the first side of the paper and flips over the worksheet to the other side, 10 more questions greeting as she lets out a groan. As she goes to answer the next question a white mass jumps on top of her paper.
"Merow."
"Ghost? What are you doing here, you little marshmallow?" Luz says with a giggle before Ghost lets out another meow.
"Miss Noceda, would you mind telling me why there's a palisman on your desk?" Her professor asks, very clearly annoyed that something had interrupted her reading.
"I'm not sure," as Luz replies, Ghost leaps off her desk and goes to the door of the classroom and looks back at Luz and lets out another noise. Wait, she's trying to lead me somewhere. Is something wrong with Amity? I should follow her. "I'll go take her back to the palisman storage room if you're okay with that?" Luz says.
“Go ahead, but don’t take too long,” Her professor replies.
“I’ll be back soon,” Luz says, having a distinct feeling that it was a lie as she gets up and walks towards Ghost. When she gets close Ghost begins to walk down the hall and Luz follows. She continues to follow Ghost until she leads her to the locker that leads to the shortcut room, which is still open. Luz overhears some sniffles from inside the room and quickly runs in to see the source. Ghost follows.
“Amity!” Luz shouts with concern as she sees her girlfriend on the ground, curled up and rocking. Amity doesn’t look at her but her rocking stops when she hears Luz’s voice. Ghost walks up to Amity and begins pawing at her legs. “No wait, you don’t have to stop, hold on one moment.” Luz goes and picks up Ghost and holds her in front of her face and says in a soft voice, “You did a great job you little marshmallow, but you need to get back to the palisman room, can you do that for me?”
Ghost makes a noise as if to say, “Yes” and Luz takes that as a sign to take her girlfriend's palisman and gently places her outside and closes the locker, granting her and Amity some much needed privacy, not before giving Ghost some well earned head scratches though.
Luz turns back around and takes a moment to assess the situation. She has an idea of what Amity is going through, Luz had gotten like this on a couple occasions, usually her mom was there to help her out, but now it was up to Luz to help her awesome girlfriend out. Luz searches her memories for what her mom would usually do for her. Luz walks over to Amity but makes sure to give her space and kneels down and asks in her most gentle tone, “Amity are you okay with speaking right now, shake your head yes or no.”
Amity shakes her head no. Okay step 1 was done. Now step 2.
“Are you okay with touch right now?”
Amity once again shakes her head no. Luz takes a moment to think. This was usually the moment her mom pulled out a piece of paper and pen for her to communicate with but Luz had left her supplies in her classroom and she didn’t want to leave Amity here. That’s when she gets an idea.
“Do you have the tamagotchi I gave you with you?”
Amity nods her head yes.
“Do you remember what letter all the symbols represent?” Luz had taught her after the incident at Eclipse Lake.
Amity once again nods her head yes.
“Would you be willing to type what you want to say on it and message it to me?”
Amity nods and pulls on her tamagotchi as Luz does the same.
“Okay could you message me what happened? You don't have to if you don't want to” Amity begins to type on her device and after a few moments sends the message to Luz.
My teacher asked me to move from where I usually sit in class to another seat to stop two other students from goofing off. After I moved my emotions got the better of me and I ran here to cry. Ghost then found me and helped me calm down a little, and then she went and got you. I know that it was a stupid thing to cry over and I'm not sure why it set me off like this and I am sorry for wasting your time with my childish outburst.
Luz’s heart breaks at the last part of the message. “Sweet potato you are never a waste of time, no matter what I am always here for you. And your emotions are not stupid or childish.” Amity finally glances up at Luz, clearly avoiding eye contact (which Luz takes note of) but Luz still managed to notice how red they were from crying. Luz was pretty sure she knew what caused all this but needs more information to be sure. "Amity, could you describe more how you felt? Again only if you want to." Amity begins to type on her device for a couple more moments, stopping briefly a couple times, probably to think about what to type, before she hits send and Luz reads her message.
When my professor asked me to move I got frustrated. It felt like I was being punished for other students' actions. I wanted to tell them I didn't want to move but I thought they'd be mad at me if I said anything. And when I sat down at my new seat I began to get really anxious and uncomfortable. I felt myself starting to cry and I just had to get away from the classroom so I ran here to do it. Soon I felt like I needed to do something aggressive with my hands or else I was going to explode. So I started pulling on my hair. That's when Ghost sat on my lap and I began to pet her until I felt less aggressive. That’s when she left to go get you.
“Has something like this happened before?”
Yes, multiple times.
“How often does it happen?”
Once a month.
“When does it happen?”
A lot of times when something in my life changes suddenly. One time my parents replaced my bedsheets without telling me and it happened. Often when dad and I made plans to spend time together he’d cancel them last minute due to work this would end up happening. Sometimes when I went shopping with mom and it was too loud this would happen. One time it happened during dinner because the food just felt wrong in my mouth.
Luz takes a moment to digest everything her girlfriend had just told her before she begins to speak again. “I think I know what happened, I believe you had a meltdown.” Amity began to type on her tamagotchi.
What does that mean?
“Okay how do I explain this?” Luz replies, scratching her head, “Amity, do you know what autism is?”
Amity shakes her head no.
“Meltdowns are something a lot of autistic people get,” Luz continues, “And I’m not a doctor but I think you may have autism. See it’s a disorder-”
Luz doesn’t get to finish her thought as panic begins to fill Amity’s eyes. “I-” Amity begins to choke out, clearly forcing herself to speak when she does not want to, “I have to get back to class.” Amity stands up from the ground.
Luz began to panic as well, Amity was in no condition to return to class and she needs to talk with her about this. “Amity it’s fine, you don’t have to speak and class can-”
“No!” Amity almost shouts, cutting off her girlfriend again, “I’m fine, really.”
Luz stands up in front of her girlfriend, “Amity please I’m trying to help you.”
“I don’t need any help,” Amity walks past Luz and towards the door out of the shortcut room.
“Amity, please let me help you,” Luz pleads, tears forming in her eyes. She begins to panic, she can’t stand to see Amity leave when she clearly needs more time away from class. Instincts kicks in and Luz lunges forward and grabs the taller girl's arm. Luz instantly regrets it when Amity grabs the edge of her school uniform with her other hand, looks back at her and gives her the same look she gave her back in the library when Amity discovered Luz with her diary. It’s like a dagger was being lodged into her chest as she looks back at her. Amity told her earlier she wasn’t okay with touch and Luz just ignored her request and violated her boundaries.
She messed up, bad.
Luz lets go of her girlfriend's arm, “I’m sorry Amity,” Her words are filled with shame, “I shouldn’t have done that-” Luz doesn’t finish her apology as Amity silently walks out of the room and back to her class. Luz wants to run after her but can’t bring herself to, not after she had somehow managed to make the situation worse. Instead she opts to sit down on the ground and cover her eyes with her hands as she begins to cry.