The eclipse: Bain's early-puberty zenith, beating Orin, and the end of inseparability

pivotal · ~age 15, B.S.; reunion ~16

• When: ~age 15 (the break), with a brief reunion "for a few months the next year" (~16) as chemical-mischief partners
• What: The friendship's hinge, in Bain's own words: "Orin and I were inseparable until around age 15," when Bain hit his early-puberty zenith of athletic promise "and began to be able to beat him. He took it hard. We were never inseparable again." The next year they are briefly close again during a period of heavy shared experimentation with recreational substances — the phase that makes scene 160's tag for Bain "Orin’s old E.T.A. doubles and chemical-mischief partner." Orin loses enthusiasm for substances on discovering "the weaker sex"; the phase's price for Bain falls under event 8. (The mirror-image of the same delayed-puberty curve that broke Orin's own competitive spirit, scene 068.)