The Bear Who Knew Everything

My life became a complete disaster the day my mom decided we were going 'alkaline' or whatever. One minute I'm surviving on chips and confidence, the next she's force-feeding me these green smoothies that taste like liquid lawn.

"It's spinach! It's a superfood!" she announced, slamming a glass of sludge on the kitchen table like she'd just discovered fire. "And I added your vitamin supplement too, you're welcome."

I stared at it. Mom had been on a health kick since her new boyfriend—some yoga instructor who definitely owned too many crystals—suggested she could 'optimize her energy.' Spoiler: she couldn't. But now I was trapped in her wellness experiment.

The worst part? I'd just made varsity cross country, and I needed actual energy, not pond water.

"Gotta bounce," I said, grabbing the smoothie. I'd dump it in a neighbor's bushes on the way to school like a normal person.

But then I saw him. The bear.

He was sitting in the passenger seat of my dad's car like he owned the place. Button eyes slightly loose from when I'd tried to feed him actual spinach as a toddler. One ear flopped sideways. Mr. Cuddles—yes, that was actually his name, thank you very much—had been living in my closet since sixth grade because admitting you still sleep with a stuffed animal at fourteen is basically social suicide.

"...Why is Mr. Cuddles in your car?" I asked, my voice cracking like I was still twelve.

Dad froze. He looked at me, then at the bear, then back at me like we were all participants in some psychological experiment.

"He... comes with me to job sites," Dad said finally, like this was a normal thing that normal human fathers did. "For moral support."

I stood there, smoothie in hand, processing this information. My dad—the same man who made me practice shaking hands with 'firm eye contact' before every scholarship interview—took a beat-up teddy bear to construction sites.

"Dad, that's—" I started, then stopped. Because honestly? The bear was a total vibe.

Mr. Cuddles had been there through everything. The time I failed algebra and cried for three hours straight. When Jessica Martinez rejected my awkward invitation to the spring formal in front of everyone. The night I couldn't sleep because I was terrified about varsity tryoffs. And somehow my dad—the same person who told me 'real men don't cry' when I was nine—had been carrying this piece of my childhood around like a tiny, furry therapist.

"You know what?" I said, taking a sip of the spinach smoothie. It was terrible. Absolutely disgusting. "Whatever works."

I chugged the whole thing.

Dad's eyes went wide. "You're actually drinking it?"

"Yeah." I wiped my mouth, feeling weirdly proud. "It's not that bad."

It was absolutely that bad.

But I drank it anyway because sometimes you do things to make your parents feel better about themselves. And because suddenly the fact that Mr. Cuddles sat in my dad's truck every day made everything else—like the health smoothies, and varsity pressure, and my mom's entire personality transplant—seem less like the end of the world and more like just another weird thing families do to survive each other.

"See you later," I said, grabbing my backpack. "Don't let Mr. Cuddles slack on the job."

"Never," Dad called back. "He's the hardest worker on the site."

I walked to school feeling weirdly light, like maybe being seventeen wasn't actually the worst thing that could happen to a person. Sometimes the most embarrassing parts of you were just the parts that made you human. And sometimes spinach was just spinach, and bears were just bears, and somehow that was enough.