"Wait, was that why you didn't do any theater? Mom always tried to push you to and..."

"I don't... I mean... Was it? I mean it is kinda gay but so am I."

"You said you wouldn't have time to do it justice and you thought you wouldn't like it that much even though you cried when you watched Lion King."

"That's the most bullshit excuse, Pete."

"I didn't push you about it because it's actually pretty rude to point out other people's internalized whatever if they're not hurting anybody else. But it did not feel organic and wholesome, no."

He puts his head in his hands. "I wanted to be in the musical," he grumbles. "...but Nate would've made fun of me."

"Pete I know I just said that that was the most bullshit excuse but you went and made a liar out of me—"

"It's not real," he says, lifting his head up and sounding annoyed. "That's not my real excuse, or reason. I wanted to, and I had soccer—shit I need to text them and tell them I won't be there today—" He grabs his phone and starts doing that. "I wanted to, and I had soccer, and D&D, and homework, and those are great reasons."

"...but you also thought about how Nate would've made fun of you if you did."

"Yeah. I don't even, like, mind—I mean empirically I am embracing my femboy future with all my heart, aren't I—I made out with Kyle backstage once—"

"...skirt Kyle? That Kyle?"

"Yes, that Kyle. I'm obviously okay with girly shit! And girly people! And girls! And I could never wear a skirt because, I'm tired of epiphanies actually can they stop." He drops his head onto his hands again.

"You literally can put this aside for the rest of the day, skip school, and play video games at my place," Vivian points out. "Or even go back to class. Or for that matter smoke with me, I know you've got your but what if it fucks up my development thing but I'm pretty sure your notebook can just straight-up fix a couple of holes in your brain. And it would probably calm you down."

"You're not smoking, I'm the protagonist not you," he tells Felicia.

She rolls her eyes. "I don't want to."

"Cool," Vivian says. "C'mon, Pete. MK, uh, no offense but if you're coming you bring your own weed or $50, this is a medical intervention not a charity. Felicia... I guess you can come along if you feel like smelling terrible but not getting anything out of it except maybe a contact buzz? Gabe, you should probably go back to class before I give you an embolism."

"...yeah fuck this shit I'm going back home."

"I'm going back to class with Gabe," she says, taking pity on him; he looked like he was having a ton of internal conflict.

Peter hups to his feet, then. "...I, uh, might want more help from you guys later. But I think I'll probably put this down for today."

She leads him deeper into the park, from the part with picnic tables to the part with nature trails. A few hundred feet down one such trail, she takes him off the path; picking their way through the underbrush, they reach a spot with good tree cover by the side of a creek.

"Ash in the water, and dip your roach when you're done with it," she says distractedly while retrieving her tools of the trade. "Only you can prevent forest fires."

"You're gonna need to walk me through this process in a lot more detail than that," he observes. "I hear it involves 'rolling' something."

"You're not rolling shit," she says. "You'd end up with a cough drop wrapper."

Her arcane rituals result in two joints, one thicker than the other. She hands the thinner one to him. "101 time. Breathe into your mouth first, then your lungs after the smoke cools. Don't hold your breath longer than like three seconds, it doesn't do anything. Tap it between every two puffs - again, over the water - so the ash falls off then and there instead of whenever it wants and all over you. Do not fall victim to hubris about how much you can inhale. Are you ready for me to light you, or do you need any of that repeated."