Lost in the Rhythm

Aria #4827 in D Minor

There were four days until the mid-winter band concert.

Luz had four days to figure out how she was going to break the news to Amity that Bump had approached her after jazz class the previous day and informed her that she'd be moved up to first chair after the concert was over- and she had to do it without getting her neck wrung, too.

It felt like a betrayal, in a way. She'd dared to hope that some sort of connection had sprung up between them in the uniform room, and now she was ruining it by daring to be better than the queen of the jazz band, Amity Blight.

Maybe she was wrong. Maybe there'd never be anything but rivalry between them.

"Hey. Hey, Luz. You're staring again."

"Hm?" She blinked, refocusing on the two friends on either side of her. Gus was peering at her with wide eyes, while Willow was regarding her with an infuriatingly smug smile. Behind them, Amity and her cronies sat with their backs facing them. Maybe she had been staring. It was hard not to, when the color of Amity's hair was the brightest in the room.
"I think you two really need to sort your issues out," Willow went on. "You spend, like, an incredible amount of time staring at her. Like, holy shit, girl. Just kiss her already."

"I will do nothing of the sort," she retorted, faking haughtiness. "She's below me now, remember?"

Willow nodded to Luz's wrist. "Suit yourself, but wearing her goddamn bracelet all the time is a gay-ass move. Just warning you. If you keep it up, she might think you're into her."

"I'm about as into her as you're into men."

"Ack." Willow stuck her tongue out. "Gotta admit, you got me there."

Luz muttered something under her breath and went back to nursing the concoction on her lunch try.

She had to admit that, however guilty she felt over moving ahead of Amity in jazz band, there was a twinge of satisfaction there, too. The girl had enough ego to power a small country. Being confronted with the fact that she wasn't the music god's gift to high school band would be kind of funny. "I just don't know how to tell her about the chairs getting changed," she confessed. "She'll be so angry at me. I don't want to make her even madder."

Willow slammed her milk carton theatrically on the table. "Why do you even care?" she demanded. "She hates you. You hate her. Just don't tell her. Let her figure it out on her own. She'll walk into jazz on Wednesday and see you sitting in her spot and totally blow up. Any sane person would find that hilarious."

"I don't hate her, though." Luz would never admit it out loud, but she actually had no idea what she thought of Amity. Ever since their very first meeting two weeks ago, the fiery flutist had been on her mind constantly, but Luz's thoughts regarding her were all jumbled, incoherent messes at best.

"Then you must have a big gay crush on her. End of story."

"It's not that."

Gus, from where he was hunched over the table watching a video from his phone, gave a noncommittal grunt. "Drop the act, Luz. You're gay as hell for her and you know it."

"I'm not!" she defended herself, and winced at the crack in her voice The argument had sounded a lot stronger on her head. Out loud, she just sounded like a kindergartener who'd had to forfeit the last popsicle to her classmate.

Okay, fine. So maybe her insides flipped and flopped like a roller coaster whenever Amity was so much as in the same room as her, and getting smirked at during improv time in jazz class made her face redder than a trumpet player's, and getting stared down by those golden eyes made her whole body feel weird, but... that didn't matter. Amity was impossible to be around and even more insufferable to talk to.