Pecola || camp nano

|| three ||

a/n: first, i want to say thank you for all the support whether through vote, comments, and silent reading; it really means a lot to me that anybody is reading/showing love to pecola. also, i updated the foreword to have content warnings/trigger warnings to better reflect what pecola as a work will deal/explore, such as intraracial violence within the book, which deals with disposability politics (thus, trauma, anti-black/intimate violence, anti-blackness, misogynoir, etc.)

also, on another note, this chapter also has some spanish (with translations provided at the end of the chapter as well as in the in-line comment of translation beside its nontranslated counterpart).

so without further adieu after that long author's note, here's chapter three (that would have rhymed if this had been chapter two).

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three

"Buenos dias, mi reina."

Huey's voice was the first thing Pecola heard when she rolled over with a stretching yawn, signaling she was still a bit tired. She had slept well enough in comparison to other nights when she couldn't sleep at all or days she couldn't get enough sleep.

The soft morning sunlight came in through the window blinds of their bedroom. The chirpy birds tweeting also gave the room an even more cheery, calming feeling that morning after a tense last night with the ruminating, studying, and argument that was hazy now to her. So she found herself smiling while turning over to face Huey laying on his side and looking at her with one hand supporting his head.

"Good morning to you, too, my..." She said, forcing her smile now through the cringe as she had to utter his self-selected pet name she would call him by since he was always calling her his queen. "king."

However, Huey didn't really notice the strain in her voice, confusing her discomfort for being bashful. Thus, he continued, "Significas mucho para mí."

His voice was deeper, raspier, and kinder that next morning after their one-sided fight in a way that was either because it was morning and he had just woken up or was because he was trying to sound sexier to romance her. Pecola figured it had to be the latter because he was always trying to impress her with his Spanish after he believed he found out she secretly loved Spanish. He thought she thought it was intimate, sexy, sultry, and sweet. She never really had the heart or felt safe enough to tell him she actually developed a crush on her study partner she practiced learning Spanish with from her high school Spanish 101 class. Huey had always been the type to confront anybody he suspected of showing too much interest in her because he viewed it as a sign of disrespect.

However, she would still humor him because she still liked when he spoke Spanish to her. She loved that boyish grin he would have sometimes that would relax the muscles of usually stern, tense light brown face, making his pretty icy blue-grey eyes soften and less piercing.

"No, don't start that. You know I can't speak Spanish."

"Well, now the perfect time to change that, isn't it? My teacher said being in love made you a better learner." He teased with a smirk. "Las palabras no pueden describir mi amor por ti."

She rolled her eyes, which caused him to allow a light chuckle to escape from him. She tried to think of anything she had learned from her two years of Spanish but the only thing that came to mind was that Rihanna song. "Te amo."

"You just learned that from that song?" He was quick to pick up on this, reading her like a book. "Your love for me should motivate you to do better."