Cardboard Pyramids

Me and Mark built it during sixth period study hall, when we should've been reviewing for the history test. A perfect pyramid of baseball cards—Ruth on top, Mantle and Aaron in the middle, rookies at the base—rising three inches off the scratched-up desk. Mrs. Henderson didn't even trip. She just sighed and marked us absent.

"That's Legendary," Mark whispered, grinning like he'd discovered cold fusion.

Back then, Mark wasn't trying to be popular. He was just Mark: curly hair, always smelled like grape Fritos, collected baseball cards like they were ancient artifacts. We'd spend Fridays at my house, sorting through stacks, rating each other's pulls like baseball card critics. He gave me his '52 Topps reprint for my birthday. I gave him my friendship bracelet from summer camp, which he actually wore for three weeks before his mom made him take it off.

But somewhere between eighth grade and now, the social pyramid at Hamilton High decided Mark needed to level up. By sophomore year, his curls were perfectly gelled, the Fritos smell replaced by expensive cologne, and the baseball cards? Gone. Like, literally gone. His mom donated them to Good Will or something. I know, because I went there every Saturday for three months, looking through dusty boxes like a desperate archaeologist.

Found one. A single '89 Ken Griffey Jr. That I'd given him.

Now Mark sits at the circular table in the cafeteria—the social pyramid's apex—laughing at jokes that aren't even funny, surrounded by people who wouldn't know a baseball card from a tarot card. And me? I'm at the bottom, eating lunch with the drama kids, who are actually cool once you get past all the Broadway singing.

But here's the thing about pyramids: they're built on foundations. Without the base, the whole structure collapses. And baseball cards? They're worth more when they're rare.

So I keep that Griffey card in my wallet, behind my student ID. Sometimes, when Mark walks past me in the hallway like we never spent three years building cardboard pyramids together, I pull it out and just look at it. Remind myself that some friendships are like rookie cards: priceless, even if nobody else sees their value. And some people? They're just pyramid schemes—you keep investing, but you never actually get anything back.