Mae's next appointment with Dr. Feldman came at the perfect time. She'd had a pretty crazy weekend, and was still dealing with the fallout. She'd kind of made a fool of herself, and felt like she had a lot to get off her chest.

Still, when Mae sat down across from Dr. Feldman, she wasn't sure how much she could say. She guessed she could stick to the important details. No reason to tell her therapist everything, right?

As long as Mae didn't mention what she'd done, she'd be good.

"So," Dr. Feldman said. "Do anything interesting since our last appointment?"

"I didn't smoke weed," Mae blurted out.

Smooth.

Dr. Feldman scribbled something down in his notes. He looked fairly surprised by what Mae had said. Hell, who wouldn't be?

"Okay. That's… interesting. What made you want to try marijuana?"

Mae couldn't help feeling sort of surprised. "Wait, you're not gonna chew me out?"

"Mae, I'm your therapist, not your dad," Dr. Feldman said. "If you'd done a more serious drug, I might be upset, but you're a young adult. Young adults… tend to experiment with certain substances."

"Oh. Right." Mae chuckled. "Well, I mean… it's sort of a long story."

Dr. Feldman took a look at his wristwatch. Who wore wristwatches anymore? Didn't people just use phones? Dr. Feldman lived somewhere with reception. Shouldn't he own a phone? Or maybe it was like a fashion thing. Or maybe Dr. Feldman had some sort of secret weapon hidden in his watch!

Wait. No. Focus.

"We're here for a whole hour," Feldman said. "We have time, if you want to talk."

Mae sighed. She guessed, now that it was out in the open, she had to tell him. Besides, if she wound up getting addicted to marijuana and overdosing, it would be important for someone to know, right?

"Okay… So, I was hanging out with Gregg and Angus. We were looking for someone I wanted to talk to…"

When Mae had first told Angus and Gregg about her plan to start making amends, she got mixed reactions. Neither of them knew whether this was a good idea, or just one of Mae's regular ideas. Neither of them shot her down, though, so that was a good sign.

Apologizing was good, right? It was, like, polite and stuff.

They'd been in Gregg and Angus's apartment when she had laid out her plans. Mae had huddled up into one corner of their couch, while Gregg and Angus were pressed together at the other end. The boyfriends exchanged a confused look when Mae was done.

"So, like," Gregg said slowly, "you're gonna just, like, apologize to people you messed with?"

"No, no," Mae said. "If I tried to apologize to everyone I've messed with, I'd be doing this for, like, 80 years. I'd be a corpse when I finished. An apologetic corpse. No, I'm just going to apologize to people I seriously hurt."

"Like the dudes we buried?" Gregg asked.

Mae winced. "Gregg, it's been a few months. I think it's a little late to apologize to those guys."

"Good thing, too," Angus muttered. He looked bashful when his comment was met with concerned looks. "Sorry. Please continue."

"Who're you gonna make it up to first?" Gregg asked. "Cole?"

Mae felt herself gag a little at the mention of that name. Just the memory of that night made her feel sick. She hadn't been able to eat candied almonds since then.

"No. I'm nowhere near ready to go down that rabbit hole," Mae sighed. "No, I thought I'd start with, like, Levy."

Silence. Angus and Gregg stared in confusion at Mae.

"Levy?" Angus repeated. "The burnt out guy?"

"Yeah," Mae said. She pondered Angus's words for a moment. "Wait, how do you know Levy?"

"Remember when I said that we tried weed a while back?" Gregg asked, gesturing to himself and Angus. "We got it from Levy. He's got, like, a hookup."

Mae's eyes widened in shock at Gregg's words. "Holy shit," she said. "Levy's a drug dealer?"

Back in high school, Levy had been the local burn out. Pretty much everyone knew he was on drugs. He'd gotten in trouble for it once or twice, if Mae remembered. He was a pretty mellow guy, though. The idea of him becoming a hardened criminal was such a turnaround it scared Mae.

"Uh, no," Angus sad. "He just hangs out behind the Food Donkey smoking pot. He gave Gregg a couple of joints in exchange for a bag of pretzels."

"Oh, okay," Mae said. "Yeah, that sounds more like Levy."

"Why do you need to apologize to Levy?" Angus asked. "I didn't think you really knew him."

"I don't, really," Mae sighed. "But I kinda screwed him over once back in high school. It's not something I like to think about. It was really embarrassing."

"Whoa, dude," Gregg said. "What happened?"

Mae didn't want to talk about this. She really didn't. But she needed to confront her past if she was going to do this whole 'making amends' thing. Besides, Gregg and Angus were practically family. If she couldn't tell them about this, who could she tell?

"Okay," she said. "Do you guys remember that one party up by Possum Leap?"

"Oh, god, this is gonna be so sick," Mae said excitedly.

Gregg, Angus, Mae, and Casey were all piled into an old, red pickup truck. It was Casey's stepdad's, and it smelled like an old basement. Still, it was cool that Casey was allowed to drive it. Between his stepdad's truck and his boat, Casey was, like, the group transport.

"Yeah, I guess," Angus muttered. Gregg laughed and gave his boyfriend a squeeze on the arm.

"It'll be great, dude!" Gregg exclaimed.

"Yeah, this is, like, your first party with us, ain't it, big guy?" Casey asked, looking at Angus through the rearview.

The big guy nodded. Despite being in a band with him, Mae felt like she didn't know Angus all that well. She'd helped motivate Gregg to ask him out, but aside from that, there wasn't much there. Still, he was a nice, cool guy, so Mae was glad to have him along.

"Alright, my stepdad said we gotta be back by midnight," Casey said, "so, like, don't get distracted by beer, or sex, or whatever."

"Why're you telling us not to get distracted by sex?" Mae asked. "You're the one who can't keep it in his pants."

Casey rolled his eyes. "Don't go around commenting on my lifestyle, Margaret. Besides, between the lovebirds back there, and you and Cole, I'm the one least likely to get up to anything tonight."

"Dude, Cole and I haven't even kissed or anything," Mae said. So far, her 'relationship' with Cole mostly consisted of playing video games and eating pizza. Not that Mae was complaining. She had fun with Cole.

Besides, prom was a few months away, and they'd probably kiss then. That didn't seem like something that was easy to mess up.

"I sincerely doubt that Gregg and I will get up to anything in the woods, either," Angus said.

"Yeah, Casey, that just leaves you," Gregg laughed. "You're totally gonna do some stuff in the woods. I hope a crazy slasher comes out and chops you up."

"I hope the slasher comes after you next," Mae said, not missing a beat.

Casey smirked. "I hope the police show up and mistake you for the slasher and fill you with lead," he said to Mae.

"You guys are weird," Angus said, laughing good-naturedly.

"Er, Mae?" Dr. Feldman asked.

"Yeah?" Mae said. "What's up, doc?"

"We seem to have gotten off-track," Feldman said. "You were telling me about why you smoked weed, but now you're describing a party you went to in high school?"

"Yeah," Mae said. "It's called nested storytelling. It's a narrative device."

Dr. Feldman looked as if he wasn't sure what to say to that. "Okay, but we're in the middle of a therapy session, so—"

"It's. Good. Storytelling." Mae said. "We're getting to the main part anyway. It won't take long."

Dr. Feldman sighed. "Okay, but if I wind up missing my next appointment because of this story, I'm going to start intentionally giving you bad advice."

"Deal," Mae said. "So, anyway…"

The party hadn't exactly gotten off to a good start.

For one thing, Mae hadn't realized that it was being held up near the creepy war monument up by Possum Leap. Mae had always hated that statue; its eyes were always following her around.

Casey had parked his truck on the hill at the edge of where the party was being held. A small fire was already roaring, and a few overturned logs formed a sitting circle around it. A few kids were gathered around a keg of beer that had been set up on a table.

"Holy shit," Mae mused. "They're doing beer?"

"Uh… yeah?" Casey responded. "We're seniors, Mae. We drink beer. Well, I mean, I've gotta drive, but everyone else is drinking beer."

"I think I'll skip the beer," Angus said as he and Gregg joined their friends. "I don't wanna go home smelling like beer."

"Message received, Cap'n," Gregg said, taking Angus's hand. "Come on, let's go chill by the fire. We can see if some douchebag's busted out a guitar yet."

Gregg excitedly led Angus towards the sitting circle. The big guy seemed to be struggling to keep up. It was kinda adorable.

Mae wasn't sure how she felt about the whole 'beer' thing. On the one hand, from her dad's experience with alcohol, Mae was hesitant to give it a try. On the other hand, alcohol could really eff you up, and Mae was all about that.

Plus, it'd piss off Aunt Mall Cop if she ever found out.

The pros far outweighed the cons. Mae made a beeline towards the keg of beer, leaving Casey to wait by the truck. Thankfully, the crowd around the beer wasn't too big, so Mae was able to pretty easily make her way through.

"Stand aside, citizens," Mae said. "I'm gonna beer it up."

Mae took one of the red plastic cups from beside the keg. It took her an embarrassingly long time to figure out how to get the beer out, but once she did, she filled up. The beer was all bubbly, and looked like hobo pee.

Now that she actually had the drink, though, Mae wasn't sure what to do. She looked over to the nearest person with a cup. She vaguely recognized him as the football guy who'd gotten Cathy Daminco pregnant.

"Hey, footboy," Mae said. Somehow, this actually got his attention. "How do I do this?" She waved the plastic cup in his face.

The football guy stared, baffled, at Mae for a second. "You drink it?" He said slowly. "Thought that would've been obvious."

"Okay, okay, chill out, dude," Mae said. "Just wanna make sure I do it right." Mae lifted the cup to her lips and took a good, long sip.

She immediately regretted it.

It tasted like… like… Mae had no idea what to compare it to. She'd had food that had been cooked with alcohol, and this was, like, that times a thousand. She only managed to swallow about half of it before she spat it out.

A flurry of yellow mist erupted from Mae's mouth as she spat out what she hadn't swallowed. Mae felt herself beginning to retch. Her throat was on fire. Some of the beer had dribbled down onto her shirt. Ugh. It was going to stink of beer until her next laundry day.

And who knew when that was going to be?

It took Mae a few seconds of disgusted retching to realize that she'd spat the beer all over the football man. He did not look happy. At all. Then again, Mae didn't know him that well. Maybe he expressed happiness by snarling.

"What the actual eff, dude?!" He screamed.

Mae groaned, wiping beer off of her chin as she regained her composure. "In my defense," Mae said, "you should have warned me how garbage that stuff tasted." She gradually began to realize that the eyes of everyone at the party were on her and the football dude.

"You couldn't have turned your head, like, a little to the left?!" The football fellow asked. "What the eff is wrong with you?"

Mae chuckled nervously. The chatter of the people around them had died down, and all attention was honed in on the two beer buddies. While the football sir tried wiping his face off with his shirt, a few people began muttering to each other.

Unfortunately, Mae heard them.

"Isn't that Borowski?" One voice asked.

"Dude, holy shit, yeah," someone else said. "Aw, man, she's gonna beat the shit out of Ron."

As much as Ron might have deserved to have his shit beaten out of him, Mae wasn't going to do it. She didn't want people in town thinking she was crazier than they already did. Plus, Mae didn't even have a bat or anything. Oh, and also, beating people up was wrong or something, whatever.

"I'm gonna… go…" Mae said. She set her plastic cup down next to the keg of beer and hurriedly stepped away. She left Ron standing there, fuming and asking if anyone had some paper towels.

While everyone was focused on Ron, Mae made her way back to where Casey's truck had been parked. She needed to hide away for a bit; at least until everyone's attention died down. Mae reached out and tested the passenger door on the old, red truck.

Casey had left it unlocked. Thank crap. Mae pulled the door open, pulled herself into the seat, and slammed the door shut. A long sigh of relief escaped her.

"Dude, you smell like beer."

Mae screamed and flailed in her seat. She hadn't noticed Casey sitting in the driver's seat. Maybe that was because he was wearing his old camo hoodie. Ha, jokes. No, but seriously, Mae had been terrified.

"Dude, what the hell are you doing here?!" She asked.

"I mean, it's my truck," Casey pointed out. "Well, it's basically mine. What are you doing here?"

Mae sighed. "Hiding from my shame."

"Oh, crap," Casey said. "Your shirt didn't catch on fire again, did it?"

"I'm still wearing my shirt, so no," Mae said. "I spat a mouthful of beer onto Ron… uh… Ron Footballman."

"Oh, Ron Boonstra?" Casey asked. "Good. The guy's kind of a douche. You heard about what happened with him and Cathy, right?"

"Yeah," Mae chuckled. "I was at Fort Lucenne when she ripped out Cindy's nose ring."

Casey winced. "Oh, God. I didn't know about that part. Poor Cindy."

"Poor both of them," Mae sighed.

Silence fell on the two of them. They watched through the windshield as the party continued without them. People were talking, kissing, snacking. Mae could see Gregg and Angus cuddled up on one of the logs by the fire.

"Doesn't look like Cole's here," Mae mused. Gregg turned his head to look at her.

"Well, you told him about this party, right?" He asked.

Mae shrugged, embarrassed. "I figured he'd have heard about it. He's a popular guy, right?"

"I guess," Casey said with a shrug. "You know him better than I do, Mae."

That she did. Mae also knew that Cole was a bit of a nerd. He was probably studying, like, Latin, or books about popes, or something. They were kind of exact opposites when it came to studying.

It still kind of boggled Mae's mind that Cole was into her. He knew about the softball incident, knew she looked the way she looked, and had still come up to her and said he liked her. They weren't exactly boyfriend and girlfriend, but it was still nice.

Mae certainly couldn't see anything going wrong in their relationship, particularly with prom coming up. Yup. Prom would probably be great. Absolutely great.

Casey was fairly quiet. He seemed absorbed in his thoughts. Mae didn't exactly like that. Casey was normally a pretty energetic, social guy; not the type to lock himself in a truck while a party was going on.

"Uh," Mae said, struggling to start a conversation. "Did you hear about the sinkhole out by Arbor Street?"

Casey chuckled. "This whole town is a sinkhole," he said.

"Well, that's depressing," Mae mused.

"Sorry," Casey said. "I've just been thinking. Like, prom's coming up. And, after that, there'll be graduation. But what then?"

"I'll probably go to college," Mae said. "I mean, hopefully. Fingers crossed."

"Yeah, but that's you, Mae," Casey said with a sigh. "Your parents've been saving up forever to put you through college. My dad, though? He wasn't really concerned too much about my future. After he died, it was too late to save up for college. I don't have any options."

He paused. "I'm stuck in this town."

Mae wasn't sure what to say to that. She wasn't great with, like, words and stuff. She knew Casey hated Possum Springs; he'd hated it for years. But Mae couldn't really relate. Possum Springs was home.

She couldn't go anywhere else. Whenever she did, it was just all…

No. Now wasn't the time to think about that.

"You're not stuck," Mae pointed out. "You could totally leave if you wanted to, Casey."

"I mean, I could hop a train," Casey mused. "I'll probably wind up doing that one day. But it ain't exactly practical, Mae. Plus… I dunno if I could just up and leave my mom, you know?"

"You, could, like," Mae briefly considered Casey's options. "Play drums on the sidewalk for money. Or you could seduce a rich widow."

Casey just laughed. He turned back to look out the windshield, at the party still unfolding. Mae joined him, enjoying the quiet. She still smelled like beer.

Mae wasn't sure how much time passed. It couldn't have been more than a few minutes. But, after a while, Mae started to hear something. It sounded like voices. The truck rocked a bit, and Mae looked around, confused.

Casey merely looked up at the rearview mirror. A chuckle escaped him, and he pointed to the reflection of two people huddled together in the truck's cargo bed.

"Lookit that," he whispered. "Got a couple of love birds making out."

Mae groaned. This sort of thing was awkward. Even though it was dark, Mae could kind of make out who it was; Levy and Beth Holstead. She knew them vaguely as two of the only people who bothered to socialize with Steve Effing Scriggins.

When she studied the reflection for a bit longer, though, she realized something.

"Hey, Casey?"

"Yeah?"

"I, uh… I don't think they're just making out."

Casey looked first at the rearview mirror, then over his shoulder at the cargo bed. A few seconds of silent horror passed between the two friends.

Quickly, Mae and Casey scrambled to get out of the truck. The truck was beginning to rock slightly, now, and that only increased the urgency to get out. Mae fumbled with the door handle before she finally pushed it open and tumbled out. As she fell out, she felt her leg bump up against something.

"Oh god sorry guys keep doing what you're doing bye," She said hastily as she ran towards the party. Casey was right behind her. Naturally, the two made so much noise that soon all eyes were on them.

For the second time that night, Mae was the center of attention. Great.

"Whoa," Gregg said, getting off of his seat and walking over to them, "are you guys okay?"

"Did you see a bear or something?" Angus asked, following behind Gregg.

"I'm still upset about the beer thing," Ron added helpfully.

"I'm fine," Mae said, panting a bit. "We're fine. We're both good."

Then, without thinking, she added: "Levy's having sex in the back of Casey's truck."

Silence fell on the party. The only noise was the sound of the fire roaring, its light cast over all of the party teens. That, and the sound of Casey's truck rocking on its suspension.

It was Ron who broke the silence. "Oh, effing hell," he muttered. "I knew I shouldn't have brought him here. Sorry, Hartley."

Casey shrugged. Unlike Mae, he was done catching his breath. "No problem," he said. "But if they leave a mess, they're cleaning it up. I'm not gonna explain that to my stepdad."

A few people laughed. That eased the mood a bit. For the first time that night, Mae felt relaxed. The party was finally, like, a party. Mae could finally just chill out and have some fun with her friends. Or so she thought.

That hopeful idea was soon dashed when Angus spoke up.

"Casey, your truck is moving."

Everything that happened next seemed to happen in slow motion. Mae and Casey exchanged a quick look before turning. Everyone else's eyes were already on the truck, so they were the last ones to see it rolling backwards down the hill.

Casey yelled something. Mae wasn't sure what it was; she figured it was some language he'd picked up from his bio-dad. He went chasing after the truck as it rolled away.

Thankfully, it wasn't a steep hill. The truck eventually came to a stop at the edge of a small creek.

A sudden stop.

A handful of the partygoers rushed to the edge of the hill. What they saw was something that would be joked about for the rest of the school year.

The rear flappy thing on the truck had been flung open, and the bed's cargo had rolled out into the creek. Beth Holstead was sitting up in the creek, her hoodie pulled over her. From the look on her face, she was too out of it to realize what had happened.

Levy, meanwhile, was face down in the creek. His pants and underwear were down around his ankles, and his butt was up in the air in the way that reminded Mae of a dog that was excited to play fetch.

Casey was scrambling to check if the two burnouts were okay. As he helped Levy sit up—the poor guy looked dazed, but not as burnt out as usual—the first chuckles began to emerge from the assembled onlookers.

The rest of the group was in stunned silence, but one or two were laughing quietly. No one had gotten hurt. Casey's truck seemed okay. Why shouldn't they laugh?

Mae just stared. There wasn't much else she could do.

When Mae was finished telling her story to Gregg and Angus, she was met with confused silence.

"Mae, I don't see what that has to do with you," Angus pointed out. Gregg merely nodded in agreement.

"Guys, I've replayed that night in my head, like, a dozen times," Mae explained. "And I'm pretty sure that I, like, bumped into the parking thing when I got out of the truck."

"The parking brake?" Angus asked. "Wait, is that why the truck moved?"

"I always just assumed that they'd been rocking it too hard," Gregg said. "But I have a hard time picturing Levy putting that much energy into anything…"

"Dude. This isn't funny," Mae said. "Levy and Beth broke up because of that. If it wasn't for me, they'd have a bunch of beautiful little stoner babies. Named, like, Clarence and Beth Junior."

"To be honest, I forgot all about that truck thing," Angus said. "All I remember from that night is what happened afterwards, when you fell out of that tree."

Mae winced. "I didn't need to be reminded of that part. I wound up, like, covered in corn chips."

Mae noticed with some displeasure that Gregg was suppressing a giggle. Damn you, Greggory. Your time will come.

"Okay," Gregg said. "So, like I said, Levy's usually out behind the Food Donkey. I can, like, take you to see him tomorrow after I get off work."

Mae scoffed. "I don't need you to babysit me, Gregg."

Gregg frowned. "Dude, you need me to vouch for you. If Levy thinks you're a cop or something, he won't even look at you."

Mae tried not to be offended by the notion that she could be mistaken for a cop. Then again, hadn't Germ once said that she was half-cop? If Levy thought Mae might rat him out to her Aunt Molly…

Well, Mae thought with some displeasure, Aunt Molly wasn't exactly an issue right now. But Levy might now know that. He might not have seen the missing person posters that Mae's parents had put up.

No. Mae didn't want to think about that right now. She had to focus on her main goal, which was apologizing to a stoner for making everyone see his pasty butt.

"Okay," Mae said. "It's a deal. Tomorrow, I'm gonna apologize the shit outta Levy."

And that was that. The plan was made. Tomorrow, Mae would make amends to Levy.

And, consequently, would smoke a bunch of weed.