Class Reunion
Hello, say hi to my girls: Angela and Lucia. I love them and I hope you guys do too.
High school reunion. Class of 2008.
Lucia glared at her reflex, digging her fingers on the braids she had just spent forty minutes doing and starting to undo them, heart hammering on her chest with nothing but anxiety.
High school had been a weird experience for Luce. For a werewolf, she surprisingly didn’t display any of her second specie’ traits: She was a loner, whom had always taken much more pleasure reading or studying than hanging out with friends. She was also extremely competitive and didn’t do well with groups. High school had been race, not a journey and Lucia couldn’t say she had collected many friends there.
Nevertheless, one call from her mother had completely changed Luce’s plans of ignoring the Facebook invitation. She had gotten accepted in the best universities, had been a teacher’s favorite and it was her moral duty to attend, or at least this was what her mother, Heloise, said.
Caleb had, of course, rolled his eyes when Lucia had told him, chuckling and shrugging “You go if you want to, Luce, you’re an adult.”
So this lead to now, Lucia shifting nervously before the bathroom mirror, doing a different hairdo with her tight curls and checking the hour every five minutes or so while she waited for Angie.
Angela was late, which was weird, since her girlfriend was a bit of a freak over schedules. Just as Lucia grabbed her phone and stepped out of the bathroom to call her, she heard the front door closing.
“Angie? Angie, we’re going to be late!” She sighed, putting the phone back on her purse and walking over to the living room. Angela had fallen on the couch, arms crossed over her chest and she had a pout on. Lucia snorted, she looked like a child, “Angela, c’mon baby, we’ll be later than fashionably accepted.”
“I don’t wanna go”, Angie whined, looking up at her girlfriend “I have a tummyache.”
Immediately Luce’s soft smile dropped and she crisped her lips in annoyance. Angela had this terrible habit of crying illness whenever she wanted out of something. Quince and Caleb fell for it on a daily basis, convinced Angie had the immune system of a house fly, but Lucia knew better.
“This doesn’t work with me, Angela”, she scoffed raising eyebrows “Please, get up. This is important and we still have a thirty minutes drive to get there.”
“I’m not lying!” Angie said in a childish voice, avoiding her girlfriend’s fiery gaze and staring at her shoes, “I really don’t wanna go, Luce.”
“Well, me neither, but I have to and having my girlfriend backing me up would really help” Lucia said acidly, shifting weight from one leg to the other. She mentally cursed her temper when Angela’s face dropped and she got up with a sigh.
“Fine. Whatever” The girl said, walking past Lucia and entering their bedroom, “I’ll be ready in twenty.”
Luce nodded, following her to the bedroom to grab earrings and receiving the bathroom door closing on her face. Great, now Angela was upset, this night really couldn’t get any better.
She sat at the living room for fifteen minutes, scrolling through old Facebook pictures and looking at people’s smiley faces. Lucia could barely tell them apart, the youthful happiness plastered in their faces seeming incredibly alien to her. Not even during college, when Luce had definitely started blossoming, she had been that carefree.
“Let’s go.” Angela said, snapping Lucia out of her thoughts. She had changed from her regular work clothes into a baby pink dress, wrapped around her little waist. The bunched up fabric gave her more curves than she truly had, while masking unwanted rolls. Luce recognized that dress as what Angie regularly mocked as the “food baby” dress.
“You look beautiful, Angie.”
Her girlfriend didn’t respond, only grabbed her purse and threw the car keys to her, “You drive.”
“You can’t possibly be mad at me for wanting my girlfriend to tag along to a school reunion.” Luce argued, grabbing her own purse and following Angela outside their apartment, locking the door behind her.
“Lucia, stop.”
“C’mon, Angie- This is what high school reunions are for, right? Showing off our diplomas and incredibly hot girlfriends?”
Angela scoffed, wrinkling her nose in distaste, but she didn’t seem as pissed off now, “Guess so.”
“We won’t even have to stay much” Lucia continued, incapable of shutting up when Angela was upset. They entered the elevator, “I promise. We’ll be in and out, just enough to take a picture proving we were there.”
“Promise?”
“Yeah, babe, promise.” Lucia nodded, relaxing a little as she was no longer in Angie’s bad side. Her girlfriend let out a little annoyed noise, but seemed to deflate of all fight.
Thirty minutes later and Luce wasn’t so sure about this idea anymore. Angela had turned on the radio to fill in their comfortable silence and had slumped against the passenger’s side window. She looked sleepy, which Lucia sympathized with.
“Luce, eyes on the road.”
“Sorry...”
Finally, ten minutes later, Lucia’s familiar high school building came into view. Her heart skipped a beat as she entered the parking lot, an unease feeling of déjà vu washing over her.
“I forgot how much I hated this place” She whispered, making Angela snicker next to her. The car came to a stop and Lucia got out, scanning the crowd walking in.
Jocks that had had their peak during high school were now sporting a gut, nerds whom had looked as frail as a twig were now fully grown adults. Luce spotted a cheerleader she used to have a crush on, hand in hand with a tall guy. Her once blonde hair was now box-dye red and didn’t suit her at all.
“Uurp”
Lucia jumped, startled by the burp and raised eyebrows, “Angie?”
“Sorry, excuse me.” Angela mumbled, whole face turning red, “Just uh- my spanx is squeezing my tummy.”
Luce snorted and leaned in, pressing a kiss on Angie’s cheek, “you don’t need spanx, baby.”
“Uhm... Let’s go?”
Being inside of the school was somehow worse than being outside. Not only the place hadn’t changed, but Lucia had memories in every open classroom. She had studied there for 14 years after all. An English teacher whom had given her a B was chatting with a group of old students. Lucia growled, she still hated that man, 11 years later.
“So- Which locker was your favorite to be shoved in?” Angela mocked next to her, squeezing her hand and snapping Luce out of her death glare.
“I didn’t get shoved into lockers”, Lucia snorted, flashing her violet eyes “I’d eat off their heads if anyone tried. Literally.”
“Bad puppy” Angie chuckled, before she winced and pressed a hand to her chest, patting it softly and dislodging a little, cute burp that she let out under her breath.
“You alright?”
“I told you. Spanx.”
“Okay”
Spanx were, however, just a small part of the problem. Angela’s stomach was churning, it had been churning since lunch, the rich shrimp pasta refusing to be digested. Working the rest of the workday hadn’t been pleasant, the only thing getting her through was the promise of going home.
Currently, the very same promise was still the only thing keeping her standing while her tummy bloated and the shape-wear dug on it.
Angela glanced at her girlfriend from the corner of her eyes, fighting a new wave of annoyance. Why couldn’t Luce have just believed her and dropped this stupid event?
“Oh look” Lucia pointed a glass trophy cabinet. All the trophies had been changed to display the conquests of the 2008′s class’s.
Angela hunched a little to look at the titles, immediately finding Lucia Marie Morgan.
“Spelling bee winner” Angela smiled, swallowing down another shrimp tasting burp when the half kneeling position pressed on her belly more “Debate club. Chess club. Physics Olympics- Quite the little genius.”
Lucia grinned proudly, nodding “Used to be, yeah.”
Angela smiled back to her, only for another burp to travel up her throat, this time bringing a splash of acid that coated her tongue and made her swallow thickly. She was starting to feel sick, indigestion be damned.
Luce helped her up again, tugging on Angela’s hand toward the gymnasium, from where loud music was coming from.
“Lucia Morgan?!” An elderly man exclaimed when they entered the place. It was crowded, decorated with tacky flashy colorful lights and tons of balloons. Near the exit doors was a large table, filled with trays of finger foods and a huge ice bowl with shrimp around it, which probably had costed all of their budget, Angela thought bitterly when her stomach gurgled at the mere sight of it.
“Mr. Ramirez!” Luce beamed next to her, all annoyance forgotten.
Angela’s hand was tugged and she was dragged after her girlfriend, closer to the shrimp table. She felt her mouth get wet, her stomach letting out a gurgle so fierce that she felt her skin tremble a little.
“How have you been, Lucia?” The old man asked, hugging Luce with one arm, “I heard you moved out... Where are you now?”
“Pennshaw” Lucia smiled brightly, “I finished my economics major there.”
“Economics? I thought you’d go into the physics field” He shook his head, before his eyes landed on Angela, clutching Lucia’s hand in between hers and looking constipated.
His glance made Lucia finally remember her girlfriend hanging on her arm and she opened a big smile, “Mr. Ramirez, this is Angela Meyer, my girlfriend. Angie, this Lucas Ramirez, he was my AP physics’ teacher. Also my favorite teacher.”
“Nice to meet you, Ms. Meyer” The man shook her hand firmly and Angela tried a smile, but it looked more like a wince.
“You too.” She said, her voice thick and weird. Her stomach was really unsettled, crawling up her throat, cramps seizing her under belly, “Luce, I- I’m going to the bathroom real quick, excuse me-”
Angela took off without waiting for an answer, only waiting until she was out of the gymnasium to press a hand to her mouth. Her eyes scanned frantically the hallways, but she didn’t know this place and it was starting to look like a trap.
A bubble in her stomach moved, pressing down and she squeezed her eyes tightly, whimpering. Her tummy was so upset, there was no way this was just indigestion.
Suddenly worry hit her, this was the shrimp of her own restaurant, which she had prepared. Had she just poisoned her clients?!
A wet burp traveled up her throat, making drool splash against her hand firmly pressed to her mouth. It tasted like the pesto sauce she had had and Angela gagged, goosebumps covering her arms.
She pushed through a couple, deciding if she wasn’t going to find a bathroom, at least she wanted to be outside.
It was a lost fight, her belly was stubbornly rejecting its contents and having no regards to her worries. She hit the parking lot and slumped against a blue car that wasn’t her own, holding on its metal hood with both hands and letting her head hang low.
Misery and humiliation didn’t cover what she felt when some dude - for sure an ex-school bully - whistled at her, “Not even nine o’clock and the punch’s already spiked?” he chuckled.
She wanted to answer, but her stomach choose this moment to call it quits. With one guttural, wet burp, her lunch splattered on the concrete ground, splashing on her heels and naked ankles.
Angie let out a whimper, retching dryly once, overwhelmed by the awful taste. She felt weak and stupid for coming, furious at Luce for bringing her, but at the same time craving her girlfriend more than anything.
As if on clue she felt a hand on her back, between her shoulder blades, rubbing up and down. Her short hair was pulled back and she heard a groan coming from Lucia, probably upon touching the little chunks that had gotten on the hair strands.
This mental image was enough to send Angie gagging once more, a sharp pain squeezing her stomach. It still felt full, rumbling angrily.
“Fuck, I should’ve believed you” Lucia whispered above her head, holding Angela upright, “Shh- you’re okay, sweetheart...”
“I- I’m so queasy” Angie whined, burping once more and spitting acidic saliva on the growing puddle of sick, “Luce...”
“You’re alright” Lucia said softly, rubbing her back, “When you’re done I’m taking us home.”
“I got sick on my shoes” Angela sniffled, tearing up. She felt awful, embarrassed and exhausted.
“I’ll wash them for you.”
“I- I ruined your night...”
“Oh please.” Lucia scoffed and suddenly she was hugging Angela to her, ignoring the sick still clinging to her girlfriend’s lips, “I ruined your night.”
“I think it was-uurp-” Angela burped wetly against Luce’s chest, but didn’t pull back. She wanted to melt into the hug, “I think it was the under-cooked shrimp, but okay.”
“Still” Luce scoffed, rubbing her back and guiding them away from the puddle, very slowly “If I hadn’t been an ass you could be hurling in our pristine bathroom.”
“It’s-It’s oka-...” Angela pulled back suddenly, bracing against Lucia as she puked another large gush on the gravel, missing the mark by some inches and covering most of Luce’s left foot with sick. Angela heard her girlfriend whine, but she didn’t even flinch.
“Oh god” Angie mumbled, hugging her belly. She was suffocating with the stupid shapewear, whole body covered in cold sweat. Her tummy was still gurgling and churning and Angela knew very soon it wouldn’t be just her stomach throwing a fit, “Luce- Lu, take me home. Now.”
“Okay, okay- Hold on to me, alright?”
Angela obeyed, wrapping an arm around Luce’s shoulders and letting her weight fully down on her girlfriend. Never before she had been more grateful for the other woman’s incredible supernatural control, since she was capable of using her full werewolf force without her eyes shining white-violet and startling people.
Lucia pressed a kiss on her temple, carrying her to the car “We’ll be home in no time, baby.”
“I’m going to puke in the car, my tummy’s a mess” Angela warned her and Lucia shrugged, unlocking the passenger door and settling her in.
“Cars can be cleaned” She whispered, kissing her girlfriend’s clammy forehead, “I love you.”
“You better” Angela smiled weakly, mushing her face on Luce’s deep red pantsuit, “I just publicly humiliated myself.”
“Luckily no one here knows you.” Luce petted her hair, feeling her girlfriend lean further into her embrace. She sighed and pulled back slowly, fixing Angie inside the car, “Try getting some rest, your body is exhausted.”
“M’kay” Angela slurred, leaning back on the seat and pressing a hand to her belly “I hate spanx”
“Told you didn’t need it, baby” Lucia snorted, entering the driver’s seat.
