April 7th, 2026

When I wake up, I’m in my room - or at least, what I believe to be my room. 

The walls are still off-white, my mattress is still low-rise, and the shelf is still right next to the blind-shuttered windows of my room. My shelf, however, has been slightly redecorated. The old Pentax 67 photoshoots I took of still life as well as my friends and I are still there, but the remaining eclectic mix of origami models and action-adventure figurines have been replaced by pop music album covers like those of Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter. The tabletop above the drawers also has a record machine on it, and the drawers themselves are striped with lavender glitter. Interestingly enough, my desk is rather untidy.

As I make my bed, memories of the previous night flood my brain: music, salads I never ate, drinks I mostly avoided - even dancing, for some God forsaken reason. I’m pretty sure the sole soft drink I had did me in, especially since I was too tired to watch over it.

After using the washroom, I go downstairs to eat breakfast. Before I can even sit down, my mom pulls me into a hug.

“Oh, sweetie,” she worries, “are you okay?”

“Yeah…sort of,” I reply. “What happened to me last night?”

“Blossom told me she found you all passed out after the Waterloo tour two days ago,” my mom replies. “She took you here, don’t worry.”

“Ok…” I hesitate, looking at a calendar plastered with the photo of a pop girl I don’t recognize. She looks vaguely like one of the 2024 graduates from the photo sets at Oak Ridge - if more stage makeup were applied to her face. She’s blonde (with her slightly wavy hair in a braid), green eyed, and presumably white. 

I have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for breakfast. As I’m about to look for my daily pills, I notice that their containers have been decorated with cutesy stickers of the calendar pop girl. I definitely don’t remember my estrogen bottles ever being decorated.

“What happened to my meds?” I wonder.

My mom stares at me, confused.

“What do you mean?” she asks. “They were always like that.”

“Ohhhh…” I mumble.

Maybe this is just some sort of prank, I think. Mom barely gets to see me these days, anyways.

…

When my English teacher sees me today, she is not happy with me. Apparently, I forgot to hand in several short story analyses due from weeks ago, even though I can distinctively remember the pop-ups of my D2L submission receipts in my email which are somehow now gone. I hadn’t been hacked either, going off my device login history. On top of that, she also has no recollection of the poetry assignment I started on either, claiming that I didn’t even start on my brainstorming despite my recollection of already having done my rough draft and being halfway through a strangely disappeared good copy.

“Do you not take the only mandatory course across every single university application seriously?” she scolds me.

I don’t even bother to defend myself.

My law course isn’t faring much better, either. While my work is at least done there, my presentation about rights and freedoms around the world was apparently a total failure. The slides are this egregious Arial fonted, unaligned and photo-bombed mess that I couldn’t have possibly made at my age and grade - except, of course, I did. Right? My worksheets are likewise complete disasters, being scribbled in with brief handwriting I can barely recognize as my own instead of the coherent points I recall typically making.

I visit my friends at lunch. At the very least, they are still somewhat recognizable. Blossom’s hair is still red, and her eyes are still blue. Glen, likewise, still has dark skin and curly black hair. However, both look unusually overdressed. 

Blossom has applied a hefty dosage of mascara and lip gloss, unlike the natural light foundation I tend to see her in at most. She has traded simple aquatic coloured blouses for a pastel blue cardigan over a golden, mildly midriff baring top. Her jeans are jeggings instead of loose pants, with only her running shoes remaining unchanged. 

Glen, on the other hand, is dressed like an athlete off-game. He wears a navy toned leather jacket characteristic of a jock, with black sweatpants that have a single white stripe and some sort of logo accompanying it. While I have seen him in many outfits over the years, none of them have made him so blatantly a dudebro in the vein of Jared.

Looking at the pins hanging from their keychains, I notice that Blossom has a grey and pink striped flag. I instantly recognize it as the one for demigirls, an identity I don’t recall Blossom ever applying to herself - a binary trans woman, at least according to my memory. Glen, by contrast, just has a regular pink/blue/white trans flag hanging from his keychain despite the fact that I remember him also having a demiboy flag there as well. That being said, they both keep an autumn and a rainbow coloured pin, respectively, on their sets, which they promptly attempt to hide in their bags.

I’m in the middle of trying to get the calculus textbook from my locker when Blossom puts her hand on my shoulder.

“Whoaaa, girl,” she chuckles, “you look so different today!”

“Uh…ok?” I respond, confused. “I’m literally just wearing a pink long sleeved shirt and light orange pants.”

“I thought today was glitter day,” she replies. “You don’t look very…glittery. Where’s your sequins?”

What the hell? I think. I don’t have specific fashion days!

I turn to Glen to ask him to catch me up. Before I can, though, a dreadfully familiar plaster face shows up.

“Hey bro!” Jared elbow bumps Glen. 

“Yoooo,” Glen smiles. “Long time no see!”

I roll my eyes. Isn’t this the guy that beat you bloody and forced you to wear a cast for over a month once? And the guy that routinely calls us slurs whenever we’re having fun watching a show, or image editing, or reviewing your sculptures? 

“What’s wrong?” Jared asks me.

“Well, what the fuck are you doing to Glen?” I retaliate.

Glen stares at me befuddled.

“I’m totally fine with Jared,” Glen states. “He’s gonna fight Barry after school, wanna come?”

Jared winks at me, nodding.

“For God’s sake,” I say to Jared, “why would you beat up Barry?”

“Ooooh,” Blossom perks up, “that sounds fun!”

“It is not!” I tell Blossom, though I’m not sure she hears me.

Jared smirks with that oh-so-smug expression that I remember him using to torment my friends and I. Glen just facepalms.

“He paid me short two cents,” Jared replies.

He’s a history nerd that passed grade 9 gym with a 70 and never went back! I think.

“Wow, Cheryl,” Glen snarks, “that party drink really did make you loopy.” 

I ignore Glen and continue to chastise Jared.

“Aren’t you worried about getting suspended?” I warn Jared. Barry, for all his geekiness, did have a mother on the parent council according to my memory.

Jared shrugs.

“Why would I care?” he retorts. “I’m surprised you’re such a party pooper today. Maybe you shouldn’t come.”

Glen then walks off with Jared to the fitness room, leaving me alone with Blossom. 

“You doing ok?” Blossom asks me, her tone sympathetic.

“I don’t know,” I respond. “That drink…it must have done something to my memory. I swear that we had completely different lives before, but I guess none of that was real.”

Blossom takes my hand, trying to comfort me.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Blossom says, “the guy who drugged you fell off a balcony. He’s dead.”

I chuckle.

“Good riddance,” I tell Blossom. “Guess he isn't handing out any more Stupid Sauce.”

Blossom retreats from me and purses her lips.

“What’s a stupid sauce?” she asks.

“From The Digital Circus,” I reply, “...remember?”

“That show?” Blossom snarks. “Isn’t it for weird kids?”

It’s this discontent with what’s supposed to be our favourite show that makes me realize something is very, very, very wrong. 

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