A loving, married couple wake up one day to find that they have returned to their high school days, when they were the most popular student and the class geek.
(CW: bullying, including homophobic and ableist language, mentioned drug use, gender dysphoria, depression)
When Angelique Lancaster dumped a backpack and a brown-bag lunch on their table before sitting down with a huff, all Erin could do was stare.
First off, she’d never seen Angelique wear a backpack before. Erin didn’t even know she owned one. It wasn’t like she needed one—there wasn’t a single freshman boy at Chapman High who wouldn’t have carried her textbooks for her, and paid for the privilege.
Second off, Angelique wasn’t wearing makeup, aside from eyeliner that looked at least two days old. She was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, for fuck’s sake—again, since when did Angelique Lancaster own T-shirts?
Since when did Angelique Lancaster even look at this table, much less schlep over and sit at it?
Maybe it wasn’t actually her. Maybe her less cool long-lost twin had just transferred. Just to check, Erin craned her neck to look over at the Shithead Patrol’s usual spot, clear on the other side of the cafeteria. Nope, no fashionable backpack-less doppelganger, just a table full of popular kids staring back with just as much fear and confusion as she felt.
Erin turned back and met Raph’s eyes on the other side of her own table, partly to communicate the sheer what-the-fuck of the situation, and partly to make sure her best friend was handling Angelique fucking Lancaster sitting next to him without panicking or shutting down. Raph’s appetite was always the first thing to go on a bad brain day, and he’d barely touched the soup in his thermos. The last thing he needed was whatever psychological warfare this was clearly supposed to be.
But instead of shrinking into his oversized hoodie like the world’s floppiest turtle, Raph took one look at Angelique and raised an eyebrow. “Well that didn’t take long.”
Erin watched, mouth agape, bracing herself for the queen of Chapman to rain venomous hell down on her best friend’s head for daring to speak to her.
Instead, she looked downright defensive. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You do realize you tanked your rep just by sitting here, right?” Raph said. “You mean to tell me you couldn’t stick it out for one day?”
