Survival Of The Fittest

OK so like admittedly Lorenzo didn't actually like homecoming, what a fucking surprise, like, not even sarcastically. They legitimately loved people and loved the action but when the DJ goes "everybody put your hand up!!!" and the music was too loud and the people all seemed more comfortable than they were, it was sort of unbearable to be around. Every body around them reminded them of the fact that they are Distinctively Uncomfortable.

Which was a long excuse for "Sorry yeah I sneaked out and then went to a mcdolnalds (the food trucks are so expensive fr)."

To be fair, they thought the whole thing out- they came in and left in the dress, but changed to a tee shirt in the bathroom. They took photos of the school, of the punch stand, said hi to a few friends that mom and dad knew, and then dipped out asap with a taco from the food truck and a red solo cup of... something pink and fruity. Whatever people were doing, they pretended to be doing it.

It was almost fun, for a little while, but then they had to leave. It wasn't really anything in particular that pushed them over the edge. Not a song that was too raunchy, nor somebody that was acting too weird. Nah. They sort of just had their People Quota.

They looked in the mirror while waiting for the mcflurry, and realized how foreign and wrong they looked- the little pink dress with itchy tulle too high to cover their cellulite, the makeup that mom applied on their eyes. It wasn't them. And they knew that they were focusing too much on it, like, it was almost weird how they couldn't go a day without feeling overwhelming anxiety about their identity/presentation/whatever, not just in a Gender way but in an Everything way, and they just couldn't stand being looked at anymore.

Which was a really long explaination for "Dysphoria kicking my ass rn damn i need some chicken nuggets (they got some chicken nuggets)"

Anyways, they forgot about that in about five minutes when they were doomscrolling on twitter and eating chicken nuggets (bbq sauce) and mcflurry (oreo) and then thinking about how they're going to be fat for sure and so they must vomit it into a public toilet (they resisted, thank god.)

It was sort of one of those Normal Lorenzo Nights except with slightly more calories and slightly less overwhelming despair at the thought of having to face the future. So like a Good Lorenzo Night except they're still stuck having to go home in a pink tulle dress.

Somewhere in a little white picket fence house in suburban America, a teen is drinking unresponsibly. It wasn't them, by the way- what, seriously, you think they'd do it? Ren? Nonononono, it was Rosa. Plucked a can of beer from the fridge and was sipping it in the bathroom, door locked.

They knew, because they could literally hear her setting the can down, and if it was, like, coke, she would've been doing it downstairs. She's drank mountain dew at 10 in the night while mom yelled at her. She's juuled. Hell, she's probably done weed, and honestly it was exhausting because homecoming was one of those Special Teen Days and now they're going to have to wrestle something from a decidedly drunk Rosa without telling mom that she got drunk, since even when they're like at homecoming (they weren't actually there) it was still Ren's job to keep her from getting herself into stupid shit. It was unfair. It was so fucking unfair. They wish they could drink, but they're terrified of the whole lose-your-inhibition thing, like, god, what if they accidentally came out? What if they get raped? What if they lose their balance and fall off the stairs and hit their head and die?

The rest of the night was a blur actually. Like they wish they could recount what happened, but they actually just sort of gave up. Fuck Rosa, fuck homecoming, fuck high school.

What they did remember was cooking for Jackson after they woke up, next morning, when the lack of sleep and the phone exposure before bed hit them like a fucking truck.