Camila sighed, sitting on one of the benches in the locker room. She'd usually start picking off the flaking paint out of habit. But now, with the new benches, she couldn't do that. She had to sit tiredly, crutches resting at her left side, as everyone else buzzed about the day's dodgeball game.
Gym officially sucked.
If she couldn't play, then Karla "Camila" Cabello had decided it was just another pointless class she had to endure.
Everyone filed past her, and Camila bit back the urge to trip puny Y/n as she passed by. She kinda sorta been helpful with Lauren, so Camila figured she could be a little nicer. For once. The geek would appreciate it.
Camila watched her walk entirely past, snickering to herself as she remembered her fellow toothpick of a classmate getting pummeled during the dodgeball game. Usually the geek would dodge impressively a couple times, then get smacked in the face.
Today she didn't do that.
Y/n caught a ball with her face a handful of times.
And then one with her stomach.
And groin. (That one really looked like it hurt.)
And her back.
What shocked Camila, though, was that puny Y/n had the worst reaction to the latter, almost crying out in pain as she moved off to the sidelines. Y/n wore a grimace for the rest of the period, not even acknowledging the other students laughing at her for not even budging when the ball flew at her like a rocket.
Camila frowned at that. Y/n could dodge...
...so why didn't she today?
"What are you up to?" She mumbled to herself, watching as Y/n found her locker in the back corner, opened it with shaking fingers, and pulled out her clothes-
and started changing.
Camila froze, her hand no longer tapping mindlessly against the bench. Y/n changing wasn't the problem.
It was where she was changing.
The dweeb typically booked into the bathrooms, hiding in a stall. She'd gotten teased for it at first, but everyone eventually let it go. She laughed it off, sort of.
This was the first time all junior year that Y/n wasn't changing in the bathroom.
Camila wanted to know why.
Y/n had slipped on her brown cargo pants by now, and the soccer star noticed a decent rip over her right knee. The pants were worn thin. When was the last time Y/n showed up in anything other than baggy clothes? Even her gym clothes were huge...
and she was so tiny.
Camila Cabello wasn't the brightest. But she'd have to be blind to not notice how thin Y/n was. Her face was almost gaunt, her cheeks sunken in. Her wrists were bony, and her fingers looked like spindles. That's just what Camila could see as the geek slowly bent down to tie her battered shoes.
And saying Y/n was pale was an understatement. The only color on the junior's face were the dark rings under her eyes. Even her eyes were bordering on lifeless; they were a lackluster sludge color instead of deep brown. Her hair usually had some sense of order, like she'd attempted to run a brush through it, or at least her hand. But today? The brunette looked like a disheveled hobo.
Camila felt something twist in her gut, something sharp and biting. Y/n was still getting grief over the Spider-Man thing. The same paper who paid her had blasted the front page with a lie. And Camila hated to feel bad for Y/n, but the kid looked like she hadn't gotten any sleep since the Bugle's blunder.
