A week after I returned to my seventeen-year-old body, I was thrown back into high school and was surprised how little my perception of it had changed. It was still horrible. The boys reeked of awkwardness and AXE body spray. Even the ones that I thought were pretty cute at the time had a little tinge of Dark Temptation. The girls reminded me of why I only had one close friend in high school with their self-consciousness and pretending to be dumb to impress guys. Though, to be fair this was a stage in my life I had long since outgrown so I figure it wouldn’t be right to judge them with my ‘adult’ standards.

I walked over to my classroom, ignoring all the noise and small talk around me. I figured if I was going to have to start capturing people’s essences, I should scout out my classmate first. There’s this shared trauma between high school classmates that comes from 30 people being stuck with each other for three whole years. It made it easier to make friends during high school because if you’re going through a problem, you could bet everyone else was going through it too.

As usual, my classroom was noisy owing to the fact that the teacher wasn’t there. The sound of loud conversations about nothing made me almost feel nostalgic. I felt a tiny pang in my heart but quickly brushed it aside, remembering just how annoying homework and waking up at 6:00 just to get ready for a 7 AM class was. I picked my seat in the middle of the classroom, making sure nobody took the seat next to me. That was reserved for Violetta. Looking at my classmates all animated in discussion, the memories came flooding back to me. The dreamy, overachieving class representative, Elam was busy walking around listening to everybody’s complaints. Our eyes met for a brief moment, and he flashed me a smile before getting back to work. It was unfair just how pretty that boy was with silver hair combed to the side and grey eyes that looked as if they had a curious twinkle in them.

Every girl wanted Elam’s number and it wasn’t hard to see why, even Violetta had a crush on him for a little while and she didn’t even talk to boys. But for my money, the cutest boy in class back in the day had to be Aaron. Aaron was a bit of a loner. That meant he mostly kept to himself, sitting alone somewhere reading a book or listening to music. He had curly hair that looked so soft with little white highlights I wasn’t sure how he dyed in. He had a quiet, contemplative look in those black eyes and always had a gentle smile on his face. He usually didn’t come to school often but today he was there, looking out the window.

Him and Elam had a look in their eyes that felt as if they always knew more than they let on when it came to high school. They carried themselves like adults but in a subtle, thoughtful way unlike Lloyd. Lloyd, the asshole burst into class holding a radio over his shoulder that exploded with the sound of an obnoxious rap song. He always had a smug grin and a sharp lip, disrespecting teachers without any consequence. I remember last year he was a decent dude who made loud jokes in class on occasion. He was obnoxious but not like this. Something must have changed between this year and the next because he was a far cry from the decent person, we knew last year.

I was about to walk over to him and ask what his deal was, maybe capture his essence or whatever when Violetta walked into class, looking like always as if she was about to tip something over.

Vi was a cute little thing. She had short, (natural, not dyed. I don’t know how either) purple hair in a bob and blue eyes. She was the overly nice type who always said sorry for the smallest thing, barely able to raise her voice. She sometimes stuttered when she talked and stared at everything as if she was about to break down crying or hug it tightly. So, imagine my surprise when our eyes met for a brief moment and she pointed a finger at me, eyes wide and said

“Y-you’re not you,” her voice was like her accusatory finger, shaking. She looked pale.

I got up. “Hey… are you…?”

She backed away from me.

“What the heck?” I leaned forward in concern. “Vi, are you okay?”

“You’re not you,” she said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

People were starting to look at us. Vi noticed that and started looking for a seat, far away from me despite my repeated offering.

“You can sit down here,” I said.

Vi turned away from me, not meeting my eyes. I reached out for her, but it was at that moment the teacher decided to walk in and if anybody was standing now, their butts were glued on the chair. Except for Lloyd.

Vi rushed to a seat at the front of the classroom, ignoring me and the perfectly good seat I had left for her. As  I sat down, I kept wondering what the hell that was all about.