Pyramid Schemes and Palm Sweats

The beer-can pyramid in Mason's living room was tilted. Like, *bad* tilted. Three cans deep, it wobbled every time someone walked past, threatening to collapse and spray cheap light beer all over the carpet.

"Bro, check this out," Mason said, gesturing at his masterpiece like he'd invented cold fusion. "Pure structural integrity."

"Sure," I said. "Until someone opens the sliding door."

Which, of course, is exactly what happened.

The sudden rush of humidity sent the pyramid toppling sideways in a cascade of aluminum and lukewarm beer. Mason's face fell. I bit my tongue to keep from laughing because: a) social survival, and b) he was my best friend's cousin, and I was basically a guest at this party by proxy.

"Whatever," Mason muttered, grabbing paper towels. "It was basically a metaphor anyway."

"A metaphor for what?" Dakota asked from the couch, where she'd been scrolling through her phone for the last twenty minutes. "That your life is precariously balanced and doomed to collapse?"

"Ha. No." Mason glared at her. "It's about how we're all at the bottom of some pyramid, trying to climb up, but the whole thing is built on empty cans anyway. It's all fake."

Outside, lightning flashed—a quick, jagged bolt that lit up the backyard like a strobe. Thunder rolled in a few seconds later, close enough that the windows rattled.

"Classic," Dakota said, finally looking up. "First you drag us to this party, then your beer pyramid collapses, and now we're about to get struck by lightning. This night has peaked."

My palms were sweating. Not like, a little—like, *a lot*. I wiped them on my jeans, trying to be casual about it. Houses like this made me anxious. Too many people I didn't know, too many expectations to act like I belonged.

"You good?" Dakota asked, noticing.

"Yeah," I lied. "Just hot in here."

"You want to leave? Like, actually leave?" She sat up straighter, dropping her voice. "Because we can literally just go. Right now. No one's watching."

I looked around the room—people I barely knew from school, some of Mason's college friends, a couple of juniors who'd somehow been invited. They were all in their own clusters, laughing and drinking and pretending like everything mattered. The social pyramid, Mason had called it. Built on empty cans.

Outside, another flash of lightning illuminated the room. This one was brighter—a crack of white that made everyone flinch.

"Yeah," I said. "Let's go."

We slipped out the side door into Mason's backyard, the humidity hitting us like a wall. The air smelled like rain and grill smoke. Behind us, the house glowed with party lights and people shouting over the music.

"You know what's funny?" Dakota said as we walked down the driveway. "Mason's whole pyramid thing was kind of deep, actually."

"How?" I asked, wiping my palms on my jeans again.

"I mean, we're all just climbing nothing, right? Trying to impress people we don't even care about." She kicked a piece of gravel. "But like, *why*?"

I thought about it. The sweating palms, the fake laughing, the way I'd spent the last two hours trying to look like I was having fun instead of actually having fun. Trying to climb Mason's stupid invisible pyramid.

"I don't know," I said. "Because we're dumb?"

"Probably." She grinned at me. "But at least we're not cleaning up beer cans."

Behind us, lightning flashed again, and this time we both stopped to watch it.

"You think Mason's gonna bear with that mess?" I asked.

"Dude, no pun intended."

"I didn't mean it as a pun!"

"Sure, Jan." She bumped my shoulder. "But yeah, he'll have to deal with it. Or his mom will. Either way, not our problem."

We kept walking as the first drops of rain started falling—warm and heavy, splashing on the pavement. The storm was finally breaking, the humidity releasing into something almost cool. My palms had stopped sweating.

"Hey," Dakota said. "Next party? We just skip it."

"Deal," I said. "Or we build our own pyramid."

"With what?"

"I don't know. Something actually worth climbing."