Chapter Text
As spring was turning the cold and grey winter weather into blue skies and greener grass, the Ridgeview campus reflected the change. Students were found outside studying in the grass in sweaters and the sun came out when the rain wasn’t taking over for the day. It was that time of the year where everyone’s spirits were rising with the temperature.
Well. Not fucking today.
It was a bone-chilling evening and it just got worse as the sun went down. The air was crisp and sneaked into every warm crevice of your body. If you didn’t know any better, you’d probably think it was still winter. Anything metal was freezing cold, so needless to say Luz refused to subject her ass to that kind of torture sitting on the bleachers. For once, the first game of the season is taking off with a less-than-stellar crowd. Luz assumes everyone stayed back in their dorms or apartments because probably they’re smarter than she is.
Her current clothes weren’t doing enough to keep her warm, and she was stuffing her frozen hands under her shirt to keep them warm, and pulling her collar up over her nose to keep it from going numb.
Additionally, Willow was standing smugly beside her, dressed warmly, and was wrapped in a fuzzy blanket that could fit an entire family. Luz narrowed her eyes when she caught Willow glancing back at her with a smirk on her lips.
Luz didn’t know it was going to get this cold when she told her roommate she’d be fine in just a hoodie and jeans. She figured if they’re running a game then it must be warm enough for the attendees, let alone the players that were running around in shorts and t-shirts.
“I stand corrected.” Luz admits, nearly rolling her eyes back into her beanie. Willow lifts her eyebrow like she doesn’t know what Luz is talking about as she shuffles in an attempt to warm herself. “It’s colder than I thought it would be.”
“You’re right about that one.” Willow responds with a nod, watching the players on the field as the first kick of the game is finally made. It feels like they’ve been here for hours already, and the game has only just started. Luz stares back at Willow, who’s very diligently paying attention to the game, while Luz’s brain is consumed by the neverending chills down her thighs and cheeks.
“You’re really going to make me beg?”
Willow giggles. “A little bit would be nice, actually.” To which Luz physically rolls her eyes, but can’t hold back a grin.
“Oh, Great Willow. I should have listened to your Great advice. You were right and I was wrong.” Luz wrapped her arms around Willow, trying to retain warmth as much as she was trying to suck up to her enough to share the blanket with her. “Now can you please share your Greatness with me? I’ve learned my lesson.”
Luz wouldn’t sound this pathetic if she didn’t feel the cold deep in her sinuses, swearing her brain was freezing along with the rest of her. Willow hummed, pretending to consider her offer deeper than Luz knew she actually was.
“I’ll do your dishes for a week if you hug me right now.” Luz added. Willow giggled again at Luz’s piteous words.
“Buy me a hot chocolate and I’ll take you up on the rest of your offer.”
Luz had never moved quicker to mash a kiss onto Willow’s cheek, utter “deal,” and race off to the concessions stand to get Willow her hot chocolate. Luckily the line was short, and Luz ordered their drinks and waited outside the stand for them to be prepared.
She was now eye-level with the playing field, and she spent her time waiting for her key to the warmth she so desperately craves by watching the game for the first time since her and Willow arrived. Luz stood close to the fence and watched the players toss the ball from one to another, Luz losing track of where the ball was kicked in between the mess of legs racing in front of each other.
To be honest, Luz didn’t know a lot about soccer, let alone any sport, but she liked watching them. Plus it gave her an excuse to get out of her dorm room once a week. Tonight was girls varsity, and Luz was supposed to have a long evening of critiquing the plays like judges of a game that neither of them fully understood.
The ball stopped moving frantically when a player from Ridgeview received a pass from her teammate. She watched as the player dribbled the ball between her feet, meticulously avoiding the away team members that tried to take the ball. She was good. Maybe Luz hadn’t seen a game in a while, but for a brief moment Luz forgot about the cold and the hot chocolate bribe she’d ordered.
This player was familiar. The way the top half of her rust brown hair was pulled back as she focused between the ball and the goal. Her thin legs and skilled feet making their way almost halfway across the field on their own. Luz couldn’t put her finger on it, but something about her expression and movements weren’t unknown to her, and right as she saw the girl prepare to take her perfectly lined up shot--
“Sorry for the wait.” Luz turned around with an invisible jump only her chest felt, forgetting she was still standing in front of the concessions stand. The young woman behind the counter smiled at Luz as she set down the drinks she’d paid for, and Luz mirrored her smile with a thanks and turned back toward her original focus.
Luz missed the shot, and the team was already getting ready for their next play and within the mix, Luz lost the girl.
She quickly made her way back to the bleachers which were held up on stilts so guests could see what was going on in the game. Willow was leaning against the front railing, taking notice of Luz quickly, as there were very few people in the stands.
“Your beverage, oh Great one.” Luz handed her the drink and Willow smirked and opened an arm to wrap half the blanket around Luz’s shoulders. Instantly Luz felt her body thawing from the warmth Willow radiated.
“You can stop with the ‘Great’ analogy.”
“Metaphor.” Luz corrected.
“Not all of us are Lit majors.” Willow chided, but Luz could tell she was being sarcastic. Luz grinned and opened her mouth to speak but Willow interrupted with, “If you make another joke about being more ‘lit’ than me I’m taking back my blanket.”
Luz closed her mouth and turned back to the game.
From this angle, Luz could see all the players. She gazed at the scoreboard to see big red 01 under the equally large Home title, Ridgeview being in the lead from the get go. But the ball is getting close to Ridgeview’s goal and Luz thinks for a moment the rival team might score, but one of the players in a black uniform saves the kick heading towards the goalie with her knee, and passes it to her Ridgeview teammate to her right. The ball quickly heads back towards the other team's goal with a faint amount of clapping and cheers from the little crowd Ridgeview has accumulated on their side of the field.
Luz squints at the girl who saved their school from losing that point to the other team, realizing both that she doesn’t know who they’re against and that it was the same girl that Luz assumes made the first shot of the game. The same rust haired girl with the stamina of a greyhound.
Once again the ball is passed to another Ridgeview member who doesn’t hesitate to hurl it towards the opposing team's goal. The goalie misses the catch and the ball hits the back of the net with another cheer from the Ridgeview crowd. All teammates in black rush back over to their side of the field to share high fives, paying particular attention to the rust haired girl who was getting a number of shoulder nudges and back pats from other black shirt members.
Luz tried reading the gold writing on the uniform that said the last name of the members, but the girl was too far away. She could only see the big letter 9 on her back beneath the blurry image of her name.
“Do you know who that girl is?” Luz asks Willow, who’s holding her hot chocolate cup to her chin. Willow raises an eyebrow, Luz realizing before she can say anything that it’s a stupid question. “Number nine.” She explains further, pointing to the field where the girl was waiting at the line of the inner circle for the first kick to be made.
“You mean you don’t recognize her?” Willow asks, and Luz gives her a similar look that she was just given, and Willow looks almost concerned. “That’s one of the Blight siblings. We went to high school with her, remember?”
Luz remembers. Flashes of the girl walking the halls with her friends with equally colorful hair as her own. In front of her now, the girl has abandoned her green hair for her natural color, and looks almost identical in every other aspect. How could Luz not see it before? They’ve only been out of high school for a year and a half and she’s completely forgotten that students she went to junior high with can be at her university too.
Luz nods. “You’re asking me to remember things I blocked out of my memory the second I stepped out of high school for the last time.” She pulls out her phone and opens Instagram, typing “Blight” in the search bar. Willow couldn’t really deny that feeling, but Luz tended to move from one thing to the next quicker than most people did.
“Plus I guess I never thought a Blight was the type to go to Ridgeview.” Luz added, scrolling through posts.
“There were like twenty people alone in our graduating class that went to Ridgeview, and most of them were preps.” Willow was leaning her cheek on her hand, watching Luz as she deciphered Instagram pages with her eyes, chewing her lip as she did so.
“Yeah, but even Gus went to a different school than us.”
“Because he went to a vocational school.”
“You got me there.”
Willow sipped her hot chocolate and turned her attention back to the field.
Right, there were the twins and their younger sister, Amity. Luz scrolled through all of their profiles to see the twins who both went to a school Luz didn’t recognize. Edric’s page was littered with images and videos of cheerleading stunts where he played a strong backspot.
In some videos he was even single handedly holding a girl by the flat of her foot, just them two forming a stunt on their own. Luz nodded, impressed. Emira had lots of aesthetically pleasing images with many modelesque shots. Her in a sundress in front of a mural, mirror selfies, one with her and other girls lined up in bathing suits on the beach, hoping anyone who could see her reaction would dismiss Luz’s red cheeks as a result of the cold.
There were a couple of images of Emira stunting with Edric, and videos of them in large groups in an even larger gymnasium, Luz piecing together that they both excelled in the sport.
Amity’s instagram was privated, and before Luz realized what she was doing, she clicked the “Follow” button that flashed “Requested” right after. Luz’s eyes widened, panicking at the click she’d just made.
“Are you stalking her now?” Willow looked with an eyebrow raised at Luz, taking notice at the way she glanced from her phone to the girl on the field, like Amity was going to open her phone and deny the request in an instant. Luz laughed nervously and turned her phone screen off quickly and shoved it in her pocket.
“Psh, as if.” She lied. “I was just trying to see what she was up to lately.”
“Uh-huh.” Willow smiled knowingly with a squint. “You remember how she was a bully, too, don’t you?”
Luz tried to suppress the memory as something she’d also forgotten, as an effort to see the good in everyone. Everyone was different in high school, right?
That’s one of the reasons Luz felt a spike in her heart rate when she tried following Amity without thinking. The Blights were known for being selective with their friend groups, and Luz definitely did not fit said group. She was overzealous and ate grilled cheese dipped in ketchup like she doesn’t know how to cook for herself. The Blights were probably served filet mignon by a private chef every night on a silver platter in their velveted dining room.
Okay maybe that’s a stretch, but Luz knew that she wasn’t the type to hang out with a Blight. The sink of her gut told her so.
Willow used to be bullied back in high school by said Blight sibling, but now she’s one of the top plant bio majors. Their mutual friend Gus was still, well, Gus. Probably the only seventeen year old in his school right now. Most of high school was a blur to Luz, the only remaining connection was to Willow and Gus since leaving the place.
And Amity who was running back and forth across the field saving the ball from scoring the other team a point and getting enthusiastic high fives from her teammates, that didn’t seem like the same Amity from high school. The one that would make comments about people as she passed them in the hall, or refuse to acknowledge anyone besides her three other friends that were equally as evasive towards others, top students that acted like they were A-class celebrities.
Maybe Willow had a point, with vague reminiscent memories flooding back to Luz. She was looking at the field but not watching, and nodded back to Willow.
“Yeah, I remember.” Luz replied, even though she was feeling something different towards the girl on the field.
Luz is tired of thinking. She sips her now lukewarm chocolate and finally tunes back into the match.
---
Luz is shivering again by the time she and Willow make it to their dorm room. The walk back from the field was much less protected from wind and chill of the dark. She was relieved to be warm for the first time in hours, but she craved a hot shower more than anything. She grabbed her towel and-
“You can’t take a shower when you’re cold.” Willow warned, reading her mind like always. Luz whined.
“Why not?” She knew Willow would have a reasonable answer, but she was desperate for any leeway she could ignore the warning and soak in the steam anyways.
“Rapidly changing temperatures can cause inflammation and skin damage.” Willow explained. Luz debated the thought of allowing both possibilities to happen anyways, but she knew she'd get herself back in a situation like earlier this evening with the blanket, so she sighed and sat on her bed. “Give yourself twenty minutes, then you should be fine.”
Willow was giving Luz an encouraging smile, which Luz returned only half gracefully. Honestly what would she do without Willow always saving her from doing something stupid or bad for her. Luz loved having her as a roommate, they took care of each other in a way that was needed while being away from their families for so long.
Their dorm was small, only consisting of their two beds, a desk and wardrobe for each of them, and the tiniest kitchenette in existence, with just enough space to fit a sink and a microwave, but it got the job done. Their room didn’t have a shower, and Luz knew that she wouldn’t have the energy to walk to the showers in twenty minutes. so she settled with changing into sweatpants and a sweater and flopping back onto her bed, feeling her skin start to finally thaw.
Her phone was still cold when she picked it up. She scrolled through her notifications while Willow also got ready for bed. Luz mindlessly tapped response messages to classmates, a text from her mom, and spent some time mindlessly scrolling Twitter until something caught her eye.
Congratulations to the Varsity Banshee’s on the first win of the season!
The caption was tagged with an image of the Ridgeview’s girls varsity soccer team, some of them piggybacked on others, a couple still with the remnants of victory smiles and cheers on their faces, and some standing normally and posing for the photo. Black shirts on black shorts and black knee-highs scattered in front of the scoreboard, the black sky behind them exposing the glow of the field lights.
Amity was hoisted up onto the shoulders of one of her teammates that Luz didn’t recognize. A girl with jet black hair and a fierce look on her face. Amity was brushing her mussed hair away from her face with a grin wide enough to elicit a lip turn from Luz herself. She looked so casual amongst all the other Ridgeview members, opposite to the girl that was holding her on her shoulders. They all had their share of scratches and grass stains, looking effortlessly free in the moment.
A short moment struck Luz’s memory of standing at the field with Willow, requesting to follow Amity Blight on Instagram.
It’s such a miniscule thing to get worked up over, but Luz’s heart pounded when she opened up Instagram, typed in “Blight” one more time, and pulled up Amity’s profile to show dozens upon dozens of images in front of her. At the top of the page read Following.
Luz glanced over to Willow who was brushing her teeth by the sink, then looked back at her phone. She looked at some of the images. A lot of them were photos taken from the school’s postings, like the one Luz just saw on Twitter, but there were a few group photos with friends, most of which had Amity in the background or on the side. It was difficult to find any images of Amity alone. Which was fine, it’s not like Luz was looking for something.
After scrolling through maybe two years worth of postings, Luz typed up a message.
“You’re probably okay to take a shower now.” Willow says, startling Luz out of her apparently long winded online search, because Willow was now in bed with a book in her hands. Who knows how long Luz had been looking through Amity’s photos.
“Huh?” Luz questions at first, before remembering where she was and where they’d been in the first place. “Oh, right. I’m okay now.”
Willow doesn’t respond and turns her attention back to her book, but Luz chimes in a moment later.
“How weird would it be if I messaged Amity Blight?”
“Pretty weird.” Willow says without looking back at Luz.
“Okay, because I just messaged Amity Blight.”