Catfish & Vitamin Gummies

The bear onesie wasn't my first choice for homecoming week, but when your best friend Maya discovers her mom's old maternity costume from when she worked at that hospital-themed PR firm, you don't say no. You just commit to the bit.

"You look like a vitamin commercial," Maya said, doubling over laughing as I posed in the fuzzy brown monstrosity.

"Shut up. At least I'm not dressing as a literal spinach leaf like Sarah Chen."

Maya stopped laughing. Sarah Chen. The name hit different ever since sophomore year when Sarah accidentally posted her private Spotify playlist to her public story and I, being the garbage human I was, screenshotted it. Maya had called me a spy. She wasn't wrong, but she also didn't know the full story: I was spiraling, okay? My parents had just announced their "amicable separation" (read: mom moved into her sister's place and dad was acting like everything was fine, which it definitely wasn't), and I was obsessively tracking everyone else's "perfect" lives through social media because mine felt like it was unraveling.

That's when my cat, Pancake, decided to become my emotional support animal by knocking over my entire collection of vitamin gummies.

"Great," I muttered, watching the bear-shaped vitamins scatter across my floor like tiny, gelatinous confetti. "Even my supplements are staging an intervention."

Maya helped me clean them up, her phone buzzing with notifications from the homecoming group chat. "Everyone's asking what we're wearing for the costume contest."

"Tell them we're going as Two People Who Should've Planned Ahead."

"Boring." Maya paused. "What if we go as whatever this is?" She gestured between me, in my bear onesie, and Pancake, who was now sitting on my bed looking like he regretted every life choice that led to this moment.

"A bear and a cat?"

"No." Maya grinned. "A bear and the judgmental cat who lives inside everyone's head telling them they're not good enough. It's deep. It's meta. It's literally high school."

Something clicked. That night, I scrolled through old posts—mine and everyone else's—and deleted the screenshots. I told Maya about the Spotify thing. She just nodded and said, "I know. I was pretending not to know because I figured you'd tell me when you were ready."

"You're literally the worst spy ever."

"I'm not a spy. I'm your friend." She tossed a spinach smoothie at me. "Also, your mom dropped this off. Said something about you needing nutrients?"

I caught it. "I hate both of you."

"Love you too, bear girl."

We lost the costume contest to a group dressed as the entire cast of That 70s Show, but honestly? We won something better. Pancake finally let me sleep through the night without knocking vitamin bottles off my dresser, and Maya and I started this thing where every Friday we roast each other's old social media posts until we're crying.

The bear onesie lives in my closet now. Sometimes I wear it when I'm spiraling. Maya says it's my emotional support costume. I think she's right.