An unexpected meeting

Ernest had parked his car (thankfully, there had been a student lot sticker on his windshield), visited his locker without incident, and headed straight to class. The fact that his morning started with Mrs. Chen's AP Calculus class wasn't Ernest's favorite part of his schedule, but he tried to take a philosophical view of it. He needed the class, having it first meant that it was at least out of the way for the rest of the day, and he did have a friend or two who would also be there, and with whom he could commiserate later.

"Hey, E-Man, how was the party?" Donald Yaks asked. The somewhat pudgy teen didn't have the social skills God gave an aardvark, but Ernest had known him since grade school, and he knew that Donald was fine if you could look past it. Not many people were willing to do so, however, and it would be a cold day in Hell before he'd get an invite to a Jessica Edwards soirée.

"Oh, it was fine. Saw a handful of people who might not be completely embarrassed if I said hi to them, gave Jessica her present, went home," He gave a self-deprecating chuckle, "I got a pity invite, and that's okay, but I know better than to press my luck."

"Fuck you, man."

Ernest had already turned around and was halfway to his chair, but stopped and turned back. Donald was staring daggers into him; this was no longer bantering or kidding around, but something much more serious.

"Excuse me?"

"Pity invite?" Donald practically spat the words out. "I don't think, oh, I'm just dating the head cheerleader's best friend who's a total dime is much of a pity invite. Some of us don't get pity invites, E-Man. Maybe I should just stop talking to you. Would that help you get less pity? You too good for us nobodies now?"

"Whoa whoa whoa," Ernest's head was swimming. Donald might have taken far more offense than was needed, and have been far, far more instantly aggro about it than Ernest would have recommended, but he had a point. Even though Ernest could clearly remember the party he'd attended yesterday from the perspective of a social nobody, if history had now been retconned so that he'd been dating neo-Tiffany for a while, of course his own place in the Eastlake hierarchy would have changed as well. Tiff might not be the Queen Bee -- that, it seemed, was still Jessica -- but even in the old reality, she'd been high school royalty. Dating her had probably scored Ernest something a hell of a lot closer to an inner-circle invite.

"You're right, Donald, I'm out of line. I was trying to make a joke, but that's a swing and a miss for me. Sorry, man. No hard feelings?" He extended a hand.

Donald hesitated for a moment, but then accepted the handshake, "It's cool, E-Man. Just don't forget what it was like to be on the other side with us little people."

"Right, right," Man, he was going to have to be careful with this. He'd changed more than he'd realized with last night's wish, and he clearly still hadn't found the edge of the changes yet.

Ernest took his seat, and the other students filed in. Maggie the alt-girl, the Santos twins, James, Tiffany...

...Tiffany?

The black-haired cheerleader, who had certainly not been in the class in the reality that Ernest remembered, slid into the seat next to him.

"Hey babe," she said, giving him a quick peck on the cheek before pulling her textbook out of her backpack. Mrs. Chen walked in and shut the door behind her, and the class officially started.

"Picking up from where we left off, let's discuss techniques for approximating the definite integral," the teacher said, "Who can tell me -- if we average the right and left Riemann sums, what do we get? Yes, Ms. Handford?"

"The trapezoidal rule," Tiff said confidently.

"Correct," Mrs. Chen replied, "Now let's talk about partitioning the integration interval."

Ernest looked at Tiff in something like wonder, before returning his gaze to his notes. Admittedly, he hadn't known old-reality Tiff all that well, but he was fairly sure that she hadn't been the kind of person who'd known the answer to questions about Riemann sums. Where had that come from?

The girl of my dreams.

Well, that had to be it. The ring had changed Tiff's physical appearance, and her interest in Ernest, but it must also have changed other things too. It wasn't as if Ernest couldn't see the appeal of the sexy bimbo archetype, but he frankly thought it was hotter if a bombshell was also smart and intellectually curious. He hadn't been thinking of that when he'd wished for the 'girl of his dreams', but somehow, the ring had known, and had made the necessary adjustments.

Again, the power of the ring frightened him. But at the same time, he had to adjust how he was sitting, as he could feel himself start to get hard just thinking about the brilliant, sexy young woman sitting next to him.