One Day At A Time - Revised Edition

Lucas chews up his own edible and then loosely stands in front of his friends, as if he's going to give an important speech.

While he doesn't give a speech, he does gives an explanation to everyone as he paces back and forth.

"Now, y'all know that Lilly and I take one of these bad-boys before science, right? Well, they take about thirty minutes to set in."
Ava squints at him with confusion all over her face and tells him,
"But the classes are fourty-five minutes long."

Lucas looks at Lilly, smiling.
"We go last so we're calm."
"Yep," Lilly chimes in. "We also do things last because other people have gone before us. It takes the, uh, stress off."
"But mainly it's so the weed can set in."

It's so, so stupid, but also genius somehow.
Getting high and then waiting until the last minute to present a project is, and always will be, a stupidly genius idea.

None of them know the logic with taking tests while high, though.
But none of them ask it as Lucas continues on.

"So, we just have to wait it out." Lucas takes a seat back on the swing.

And they do just that, they wait it out.

Lucas and Lilly are hit by it first, then Rose, and lastly, Ava.
They're all calm and high by the time the sun starts to set.

A bubbly feeling slides its way into Rose's chest as they sway back and forth on the swing.

There's a street lamp on the sidewalk near the playground and the light that has just turned on seems to be really, really bright.
Almost blindingly bright.

The light is blindingly bright to Ava, too, as she slowly leans herself towards Lilly to grab her hand.

She runs her thumb over Lilly's knuckles. She focuses on them, smiling softly.

She's felt calm before, but this is a different kind of calm.
It feels surreal; a very surreal type of calm.

Everyone is calm and quite euphoric, all smiling as they talk to each other.

"I get why you guys do this." Rose says a little while later, after the sun has set. "This is great."

"How're you doing?" Lilly asks Ava.
Ava looks at her and squeezes her hand, nodding.
"I'm good." She answers simply. "And, and I agree with Rose. This is great."

A couple minutes later, they all move from the swings to the mulch, sitting in a square.

As they sit, Ava goes into her own head, thoughts running around in her head.

Jogging around is the better way to put it.
The thoughts aren't running like normal.
They are slower, jogging around leisurely.

One thought that sticks out in her mind is her mom, how she'll react if she figures out that her daughter is high.

That thought leads into another thought.

She glances down at hers and Lilly's hands pressed together, and she thinks about telling her mom about all of it.

About the fact that she's dating Lilly and how she isn't straight and how that slightly worries her, because she hasn't found a word for what she is to make sense of it.

The thoughts in her mind jog around as she looks over to Rose, who asks,
"Ava... are you sure you're okay? You're staring."

Ava blinks hard.
"What- yeah I'm, I'm okay. Sorry for, uh, staring."
"You're good. What're you thinking about?"
"Are you having those high-off-your-ass type thoughts?"

Ava looks at him blankly.
"That's a thing?"
Lucas chuckles softly,
"Yes! Me and Lilly have those deep conversations all the time!"
"Yep, in the back of the science classroom."

Ava can't help but laugh.
Rose laughs with her.

It's so stupid to laugh about the idea of Lucas and Lilly having deep conversations at twelve o' clock in the evening in the back of a classroom.

When their laughter dies down, Lucas tries his best to re-focus himself.
He sits up straight and asks with a look of curiosity in his eyes,
"So, what kind of deep thoughts are you having?"

He sounds like a therapist.
So far, he's looked like he's going to give a speech of some sort and now he sounds like a therapist.
It's a funny thing, but Ava looks at him, focusing herself, too.

"I know I'm not straight." She bluntly, definitively, starts with. For once in his life, Lucas doesn't take that opportunity to make a joke and state the obvious, even though he really wants to. "But I don't know what I am and... I'm worried about that."
"Why are you worried about it?"
"I don't like not having a word for what I am. I'd like a word."

"But you don't need a word-" Rose starts.
"I know. Lilly already told me." Ava says, cutting Rose off. She mumbles an apology and Rose forgives her.

Rose thinks for a moment or two and then says something quite simple.
"You said yourself that you're not straight, so you're queer, in some way. If it helps at all, being queer is its own thing."

Ava looks at Rose like they're an all-knowing God, the answer to her problem.

"Really?"
"Yeah, I thought you knew that."

When Lilly came out, then Rose shortly after, Ava had made it a point to read through a couple LGBTQ+ resource sites to learn how to support both of them.

So, she knew what the word, "queer" was, but she had forgotten it's meaning since she first read about it.

"I thought I did, too..." She trails off, then gets back on track. "But, I can just be queer? That can be the word?"
Rose nods their head.
"You don't have to call yourself queer, because I said it, another word might fit you better. But yeah, you can be queer and that can be it."

Rose will forever and always be wise in Ava's mind.

For a moment, she sits with the word, "queer."
It slips into her ear and jogs around in her mind.

It jogs around for a while and it makes sense.
It's a word that makes sense.

It's almost too good to be true, a word making sense so quickly.

She's queer in every sense of the word.

She almost doesn't trust it.
She doesn't allow it to stick in her mind just yet.

Ava lets it continue to jog around as she looks at Rose.
"Thank you." She says, smiling.
"No problem. Like I've told you before, you'll know it in your own heart. That's why you and Lilly are together, right? Because you figured it out in your heart?"

Rose is indefinitely wise, Ava will never be able to thank them enough.
Ava nods her head, yawning,
"You're right."

It's nearly ten when they all head back towards Lilly's car.

After she gets dropped off, Ava walks into her house. Donna is on the couch, tiredly waiting for her to get home safe.
"Jeez, you're home late. I was starting to get worried."
"Oh, yeah, um, I'm sorry. I had a really good time, though."
"I'm glad, that's what matters. But now that you're home, I'm going to bed. Good night."

Ava gives her mom a hug and a kiss goodnight, then walks off to her bedroom.

Donna could see the faint redness in her daughter's eyes, but she'll bring it up in the morning when both of them aren't so tired.