That night, it’s Jane, David, Ark, Thomas (who’d come along because he had what I’d assured him was a pointless crush on the heterosexual David) and me in Narnia.

We sat on the melting grass, we got wet olive stains on our jeans and our Chucks (Jane wore purple, David wore teal, I wore sequined black). We packed and smoked my handblown pink-and-yellow pipe. I had found the piece a few months ago in the expected run-down thrift shop run by an unexpected man in a suit and tie and frown. We spent a lot of time looking at it, passing it around, taking turns to smoke it and look at it and comment on it. Whoever made it did beautiful work. The lines bloomed in clean curves. Fluid, restrained lines. And, inside those simple lines, the glass turned into pink and yellow swirls. There were places where the yellow deepened into turning beads of gold, curling indentations, the night settling pale gold on our fingers.

Ark looked at me and asked, ‘So hey, Tara, how long have you been smoking? Because I remember, when I first saw you, it was like, what, two years ago? When you were Jane’s roommate in Honour Hall? And I remember, you didn’t smoke at all back then, did you?’

‘Wait, what? You were in our room?’

‘Yeah, lots of times! I was in there so often!’

‘How do I not remember this?’

He laughed. ‘You were hardly ever there, maybe that’s why.’ David giggled, ‘Big man, Tars, important girl.’

‘This is crazy. I can’t believe I don’t remember you from our room.’

‘Yeah you were, you were usually gone.’

‘Yeah, I was out breaking shit. It wasn’t such a good year for me.’

Jane hmm’d in agreement. ‘Yeah . . . You were crying all the time. And fuck, you and Asher, like seriously, you guys were drinking all the time. Like, all. The. Time. I’d wake up and you guys would be spiking your Starbucks’.

‘You’d join us every time!’

‘Of course I did, girl! Morning beverages are the best.’ Ark persevered, ‘So when did you start smoking?’

‘Earlier this year, I think. Yeah. Well it’s been, what, like ten months now, I’d say.’

‘Really? You already smoke like a pro, girl.’

‘Hey, what I lack in experience I make up in regularity, homie.’

It was only funny because we were high, but man, did we find that funny. Hysterical laughter, re-voicing the exchange, and then, when we were laughing too hard to speak, miming it with slow hands and scrunched faces.

We didn’t stop until Jane shushed us because a squirrel had scuttled up behind David and she didn’t want to scare it away. Jane loves squirrels. And all other animals of furry persuasions.