(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?”
“Are you serious?” Angelique shot back, while Erin sat poised to rush to Raph’s defense. ”You do remember I spent this whole year buying Xanax behind the gym and fucking away my feelings, right? You think I want to go back to that?”
“Mm, point.” Raph lowered his head back into his arms.
Angelique frowned, looking first at Raph’s exhausted face, and then at his unopened bag of chips and the thermos of soup that was definitely stone-cold by now. “Are you okay? How’s your appetite?”
“Yeah… no, I’m, uh.” Raph massaged his forehead with his palm. “I’m very… not medicated right now. And my voice is so high, it sucks. I sound like Minnie Mouse.”
“Oh, honey.”
“Um,” Erin spoke up in a strangled voice.
Both pairs of eyes snapped to her, and Raph sat bolt upright. “Oh, shit! Erin, I’m so sorry. This is, uh—” He shot a look at Angelique, eyes so wide they were nearly round.
“I know who she is,” Erin said dryly.
“Wait, Erin Yokota?” Angelique broke in. “Holy shit, I didn’t… uh…mm.” She frowned. “There’s no good way to finish that sentence.”
Yeah, Erin loved being reminded that she was invisible.
“Did I say anything shitty to you recently?” Angelique asked. “Because if so, I am so sorry, I was really—I’m going through some stuff, but obviously that’s no excuse and I totally get it if you think I’m a bitch, I was—am one.”
“Did you say anything—you’re joking, right?” Erin snapped. “You don’t talk to us. We don’t even exist to you. You step over us.”
Angelique’s face crumpled. “Shit, okay, yeah.” She pressed her face into her hands, clawing her manicured fingers through her immaculate blonde waves. “Sorry. Just—sorry. Today’s been a weird day.”
Erin didn’t even dignify that with an answer.
Raph had gone from melting into the lunch table to looking back and forth between them worriedly. “No, yeah, she’s right, it’s been extremely weird, and—” He hesitated. “Listen, something happened—a lot of things happened—but I can’t talk about it right now. I promise I’ll tell you everything, just—later. Not here. Just… maybe keep an open mind? It’s hard to believe—I’m having trouble believing it, but—”
“Wait.” Erin lowered her voice and ducked down, teeth gritted as everything fell into place. “Raph. What the fuck. Did you sleep with her?”
Raph choked on the air he was breathing.
Angelique squinched one eye shut, grimacing thoughtfully. “I mean, technically…”
“Angie,” Raph groaned.
“How in the hell—”
“Wait,” Angelique broke in. “Raph?”
Erin’s blood ran cold. Shit. Shit shit shit shit—had she really just—what the fuck kind of terrible friend was she, letting that slip to Angelique fucking Lancaster—
“It’s, uh, short for Raphael,” Raph said quietly.
“Raphael?” Angelique whisper-squealed.
“It was my first run at it!” Raph hissed back. “Don’t judge me—”
“Who’d you get it from?” Angelique’s eyes shone with glee. “Angel, painter, or ninja turtle?”
“I am not answering that.”
“Wait, she knows?” Erin demanded, still struggling to keep her voice down. “Why does she know?” Raph had said Erin was the only one he ever told.
“Again, it’s part of the extremely complicated situation we’re in right now,” Raph told her. “Just—please don’t freak out, okay? After school, I’ll come over, and I’ll tell you everything. I promise.”
“This had better be good.”
“Oh!!” Angelique thumped the table in sudden excitement. If people hadn’t been staring before, they sure as hell were now. Noting this, Angelique got her volume back down to “shouty whisper”. “I have my dad’s credit card!”
Raph pulled a face. “What?”
“Yeah, my parents are still mid-messy-divorce right now,” Angelique explained, looking way too happy about what she was saying. “Dad’s trying to buy my silence.”
“Oh.” Raph looked queasy. “Didn’t… didn’t you live with your dad until—”
“Yeah yeah, it worked last time.” Angelique flapped her hand dismissively. “Not this time, though. Mom and I are taking him to the fucking cleaners.”
“Good. Fuck that guy.”
“Sideways.”
“With a rake,” Raph finished venomously.
“So did you just bring up his credit card for fun?” Erin asked. Was this Angelique’s way of luring Raph away from his fellow loser with an expensive shopping trip? Because fuck that.
“Right!” Angelique turned to Raph. “Do you want me to buy you top surgery, like, right now?”
Raph gaped at her. “What.”
“I mean not right now right now, but like. Later. This evening?” She glanced at Erin. “Wait no, you’ve got a thing. How about tomorrow?”
Raph continued to stare. “I’m pretty sure my mom would notice.”
“And? What’s she gonna do, hot-glue them back on?”
“I have a year and four months before I can legally cut her back out of my life.”
“Okay, year and four months, got it,” Angelique said, nodding. “It’s a date.”
Raph grinned lopsidedly. “Will you still even have your dad’s money by then?”
“If I don’t, my mom will, and I bet I could talk her around.”
Erin couldn’t help herself. “Or you could just buy stuff with his card now and sell it for cash,” she pointed out.
Angelique pointed to her, grinning. “You. I like you.”
And with that, in just four words, Erin’s day had gotten just about as surreal as it could possibly get. She checked the time and date on her phone, then the news app, just in case she’d fallen into an alternate dimension or something. How did you spell Berenstain Bears again?
“Uh, Angie? Sweetie? What are you doing?”
The hairs on the back of Erin’s neck stood on end.
Monica Dillon stood by their table, arms crossed, hip cocked to the side, watching Angelique with a confused smile on her face. She made brief eye contact with Erin, and the corners of her eyes crinkled with disdain before she looked away.
“Are you lost or something?” she asked. Her voice was friendly, a little shaky with held-back laughter, but there was a warning in her eyes.
Angelique had ripped open her lunch bag and was focused on unwrapping her sandwich. “No,” she said, barely glancing in Monica’s direction. “Are you?”
Monica forced a laugh, and Erin’s spine wound tight at the sound. Monica laughing anywhere near you was never a good sign. “Angie, come on.” Monica leaned closer. “You’ve been acting insane all morning, what are you doing?”
“Saving, just, so much money,” Angelique replied. “So much. I cannot begin to tell you how expensive your bullshit is going to be. Lose my number.”
“Holy shit. You are insane.” Monica stared at her, baffled and angry. “Is this a cry for help or something? Are you seriously picking right now to have a mental breakdown?”
“No, Monica, I just don’t want to be friends with you anymore. Go away.”
“Why, so you can be friends with them?” Monica’s scornful eyes raked over Angelique and Raph. “Oh my God. Why are you sitting so close to her? Are you in love with her or something? If you’re gonna ditch us to be a fucking lesbian, you could at least pick someone who isn’t ugly as shit.”
It was probably a good thing Raph had let his soup get cold; Monica’s parents might have sued if Angelique dumped hot soup over her head.
The cafeteria went dead silent. Angelique shook the thermos to get the last few drops out, then calmly sat down and gave Raph half her sandwich.
Monica’s scream reached every corner of the cafeteria. “YOU FUCKING CUNT!”
“I’m so sorry,” Angelique said blandly. “I’m just, so upset. My parents are getting divorced. It’s such an emotionally volatile time for me.”
“I’ll make you fucking pay for this, you crazy bitch,” Monica snarled, wiping chicken broth off her face.
“No you won’t. You know why you won’t.”
“Fuck you!” Monica stormed off.
“Have fun vaguing about me on Facebook!” Angelique called after her. Once Monica was gone, she lowered her voice again. “She really won’t. She’s been bragging to me about sleeping with Candi’s boyfriend since last year. I have so many screenshots.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to show Candi anyway, just on principle?” Raph asked.
“Hell no, Candi’s a bitch too.”
“She’s sixteen,” Raph pointed out, hiding a smile.
“So? In five years she’s gonna make some college freshman girl’s life hell for talking to a guy she likes.” Angelique took a spiteful bite of her sandwich. “Not my circus, not my monkeys.”
Erin burst out laughing. She tried to hold it in, but she couldn’t. Nothing made sense. Today was already so goddamn weird. “What the fuck,” she gasped out. “That was the coolest thing I’ve seen all year.”
“I love you,” Raph said, which, okay, Erin had some questions for after school, but after what she’d just seen, maybe not as many questions as she might have had otherwise. “Do you want to be my girlfriend?”
“Score,” Angelique said, grinning. “Can you eat half a sandwich? Or a Hostess apple pie? It’s so bad for you, but it’s better than no food.”
“…I can manage a Hostess apple pie.”
Raph managed half a Hostess pie, and passed the rest to Erin. Erin eyed Angelique warily, one last time, until she was sure she really didn’t mind her eating her food. All Angelique did was shrug at her, like sharing her food with Chapman High’s bottom rung was a normal thing she did every day.
“What did you just do,” she muttered, partly to Angelique, partly to herself. “You just went from royalty to shit-tier in two minutes flat. You realize that, right?”
“I promise you it’s not a big deal,” Angelique replied, stealing some of Raph’s chips. “I know it feels like the biggest deal in the world right now, and yeah, it kind of is while we’re here, but I do not have the words for how much it’s not going to matter once we’re out.”
“I can’t wait to go to college,” Raph sighed wistfully. “College w—is gonna be so much fun. I can’t wait to see Hazel again. Do you think it’d be weird if I hit them up now?”
“I dunno, maybe, but oh my God I get to do my twenties without Monica,” Angelique sighed dreamily. “I can’t even imagine. I’m gonna save so much on therapy bills. Someone else is gonna have to put Dr. Meyers’ kids through college.”
“How much were you gonna spend on Monica’s wedding, again?”
“God, do not remind me, she bled me dry on the bachelorette alone.”
All around them, people were turning away, going back to their own lunches and conversations. For the first time, Erin watched all of Chapman High lose interest in Angelique Lancaster.
Their loss. As far as Erin was concerned, she was finally getting fun.
