Pyramid Schemes & Orange Dreams

The social pyramid at Northwood High was real, and I was definitely living in the basement. Freshman year, no friends, zero clout, running circles around the track while everyone else lived their best lives at lunch.

Then Jax tapped me on the shoulder in chem lab. "Dude, you gotta get in on this ground floor opportunity."

"Ground floor of what?" I asked, already suspicious.

He pulled out a tiny amber bottle. Orange essential oil. "This stuff is literal magic, bro. My cousin's making four grand a month. All you gotta do is get three people under you, and they get three people..." He drew a triangle on his notebook. "It's not a pyramid scheme. It's network marketing."

Red flag number one: someone saying "it's not a pyramid scheme" while drawing a literal pyramid.

But Jax was my first real friend since moving here, and I was desperate. So I found myself playing spy, following his cousin to the "team building meeting" at the rec center. Peeking through the cracked door, I saw it: a whiteboard covered in triangles, a room full of desperate people clutching essential oils like they were gold bars.

My phone buzzed. *You coming? We're doing the orange sugar scrub demo.*

I didn't go back. Instead, I went to track practice, where Coach Bear—a former state champion with arms like actual tree trunks—blew his whistle every time I tried to quit early.

"You don't stop when you're tired," he'd say. "You stop when you're DONE."

The next day, Jax sat with me at lunch. "Where were you yesterday? You missed it. Orange vanilla body butter is gonna blow up."

"I can't do it, Jax." I pushed my tray away. "It's not real. You're just losing money."

He stared at his orange soda like it held the answers. "I just wanted to finally have money like everyone else. My parents can't pay for college, man."

"I get it," I said. "But there's gotta be a better way."

Coach Bear caught me after practice that day. "You looked distracted out there. Everything good?"

"Yeah," I said, watching the sunset turn the sky orange. "Just figuring stuff out."

He nodded. "Life's not a race, kid. But you're gonna want to be running in the right direction."

Jax quit the "business" two weeks later. We sat on the bleachers, sharing a bag of orange slices from the vending machine, watching the track team practice. "Thanks for being a real friend," he said. "Even if you did go full FBI on me."

"Someone had to." I grinned. "Besides, I think I prefer running in circles to running in triangles."