The Bear at the Bottom

My stupid cardboard pyramid kept tilting left like it was drunk, which honestly matched my energy perfectly. I'd been sitting in the art room for three hours while everyone else was at home living their best lives. Probably. That's what Instagram told me anyway.

'You're still here?' Maya's voice made me jump. She was basically TikTok royalty—perfect skin, perfect life, definitely didn't spend Friday nights building ancient Egypt models for extra credit. But then I noticed her pyramid was listing harder than mine, and there was something weirdly comforting about that.

'Mr. Harrison said structure counts for like forty percent of our grade,' I said, immediately regretting how nerdy that sounded.

Maya dropped into the chair beside me, her expensive perfume mixing with the clay-dust air. 'I hate this assignment. I've been staring at this thing for so long I'm starting to see pyramids everywhere. Even in the cafeteria's social dynamics.' She laughed, but it sounded tired.

That's when I saw it—tucked in her open backpack, a squished old teddy bear with one eye missing. The same kind of bear I still kept on my bed, even though Mom kept saying I was too old for it. The one I talked to when college applications felt impossible.

'Is that... Bear Bear?' I asked, then wanted to die.

Maya's eyes went wide. 'You know Bear Bear? My cousin made videos of him.' She pulled out her phone and showed me—this bear having epic adventures, skateboarding, baking terrible cookies. 'He's basically an influencer. No cap.'

'No way,' I said, and suddenly we were both laughing so hard the art teacher glared at us.

'My dog watches his videos,' Maya admitted. 'Like, actually sits there and growls at the screen.'

'My cat tries to attack the phone,' I said. 'It's a whole thing.'

We spent the next hour fixing our pyramids while swapping stories about the weird stuff our pets did. About how social media felt like performing instead of living. About how the people at the top of our school's pyramid probably had secret stuffed bears too.

'Maybe we're all just pretending,' Maya said, tying her pyramid's base together with my tape.

'Maybe,' I said. 'But at least our pyramids won't fall over now.'

She took a picture of our projects and posted it with the caption 'Pyramid squad' and tagged me. For once, I didn't feel like I was at the bottom of anything.