Orange Afternoon at the Bottom of the Pyramid
The social pyramid at Northwood High was real, and I was currently occupying its basement level. Freshman year. I sat on the baseball bleachers, cleats dangling, watching the varsi...
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The social pyramid at Northwood High was real, and I was currently occupying its basement level. Freshman year. I sat on the baseball bleachers, cleats dangling, watching the varsi...
The text from my crush had been sitting there for twenty minutes: u coming to padel today? everyone's gonna be there. I looked at my goldfish, Captain Bubbles, who stared back wit...
Marcus adjusted his beanie for the third time, the lucky hat his grandma gave him feeling less like armor and more like a target. The bass thumped through someone's garage walls as...
Maya's palms were sweating as she clutched her iPhone, the screen cracked from when she'd dropped it that morning because her hands literally couldn't even. The screen lit up: **Yo...
5 AM swim practice hit different when you'd been up until 2 doom-scrolling. Maya dragged herself to the pool, feeling like a total zombie—hoodie pulled low, eyes barely open, exist...
I couldn't believe I'd let Kayla talk me into this. Working at Sal's Pizza & Subs was supposed to be "easy money" and "free food," but she'd conveniently forgotten to mention the F...
Maya's room was her sanctuary until her mom decided to install that ancient treadmill from 2012, which somehow killed her WiFi. Now she was stuck running a twenty-foot ethernet **c...
Maya's mom swore by those neon orange vitamin gummies. "Swimming builds character," she'd say, popping one into Maya's palm every morning like it was some kind of magic armor agai...
Maya's palms were sweating as she stood outside the cafeteria, clutching the crumpled note she'd found stuffed in her locker. Someone was playing a dangerous game, and she was pret...
Maya stared at the disaster on her head. The box promised beach waves, but her hair looked like she'd stuck a fork in an electrical socket. Senior prom was in two hours. "You're g...
The hat was my cousin's frat cap—bright orange, said CHAD across the front in block letters. I was wearing it because my mom had butchered my hair that morning and I looked like a ...
The kitchen was packed. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird as I leaned against the counter, trying to look like I belonged. Jackson Miller's parties were legenda...