Lipstick Lies and Vitamin C

The hat sat three sizes too big on my head, sliding down over my ears whenever I moved. Mom's cowboy hat from her mall-country phase—absolute crime against fashion, but necessary. I was playing **spy** again, tailing Tyler through the mall like I hadn't spent the entire summer doing exactly this.

"Dude, you look like a lost cowboy," Jenna said, appearing beside me at the food court. She pulled the hat down further over my eyes. "Also, your crush knows you're following him. He literally just posted about it."

My face burned. "I'm not following him. I'm conducting an investigation."

"Into what? Whether he actually uses that **vitamin C** serum he's always promoting?" Jenna laughed. "Marcus, it's a pyramid scheme. We've been over this."

Tyler had recruited half the sophomore class into selling these overpriced wellness products, promising financial freedom and glowing skin. I'd been watching him for weeks, documenting his tactics, waiting to expose the whole operation as the **bull** it obviously was. My Instagram drafts were full of evidence receipts.

"You're obsessed," Jenna said, not unkindly. "You know he's just trying to make money for college, right? Not everyone's parents have a college fund ready."

I froze. That hadn't occurred to me.

Later, at Jacob's pool party, I watched Tyler laugh with the popular kids, sunlight flashing off the braces he'd gotten freshman year. The same braces everyone had made fun of until he started making actual money and suddenly became a "young entrepreneur."

**Swimming** in the deep end, I thought about how quickly things changed. How the bullied became the bulliers, how the outsiders found their way inside, usually by selling something—products, personas, pieces of themselves.

"You coming in?" Tyler called from the pool's edge. "Water's perfect."

I hesitated, then jumped in, surfacing beside him. "Hey, about that vitamin stuff—"

"Yeah?" He looked almost wary.

"My mom's looking for a skincare routine," I lied smoothly. "Hook me up with your discount code."

Tyler's face lit up. "For real? I'll send you my link. And hey, nice hat earlier."

I laughed, treading water as the late afternoon sun painted everything gold. Maybe that was the thing about growing up—you learned nobody was exactly who they seemed. We were all just playing roles, selling versions of ourselves, hoping nobody looked too close at the fine print.