Fox's Orange Vitamin Manifesto

The first thing you should know about Fox—that's not his real name, obviously, but it's what everyone calls him because of that one time in seventh grade when he literally crawled through the school vents to recover a stolen Nintendo Switch—is that he has zero chill. Zero.

The second thing is that I'm currently crushing on him. Hard. Which is how I ended up at 2 AM on a Tuesday, sitting on his living room carpet while he creates something he calls his "masterpiece."

"You're not putting actual vitamin C powder in this, right?" I ask, watching him dump an entire packet of orange-flavored emergen-c into a blender.

"Maya, listen. This is literally going to change everything." Fox's hair is sticking up in that way that makes my chest do that weird fluttery thing. "If this works, we're talking next-level house party potential. We're talking everyone at Jordan's party Saturday asking who brought THE drink."

The concoction—let's call it what it is: a crime against nutrition—contains orange soda, mango juice, three different energy drink brands, and enough vitamin supplements to give a small elephant heart palpitations. Fox insists it's his ticket to social relevance. I insist it's a biohazard.

"Dude," I say, because sometimes you just have to dude someone. "Jordan's parties are legendary. You can't just show up with radioactive sludge and expect to become main character energy."

Fox finally looks at me, really looks at me, and something shifts in his expression. "You think I can't pull it off."

"I think you're amazing," I say, before my brain can stop my mouth. "And I also think this orange nightmare is going to taste like battery acid mixed with regrets."

He laughs—that genuine, crinkly-eyed laugh that got me into this mess in the first place. "Want to test it with me?"

We clink plastic cups like idiots at 2:15 AM. The drink is absolutely disgusting. We spend twenty minutes laughing so hard we can't breathe, surrounded by empty cans and orange-stained paper towels, while Fox's manifesto about how this disgusting beverage is going to revolutionize the high school social hierarchy becomes progressively more unhinged.

Spoiler: we never bring it to Jordan's party. We make something normal instead. But sometimes, when things get awkward in the cafeteria or someone mentions Jordan's upcoming rager, Fox catches my eye across the room and makes this face, this tiny fox-grin, and I remember that some disasters are worth it for the story.

And yeah, maybe I'm still writing that story. But at least it's ours.