The Boy They Called Bear

Maya wiped her sweating palms on her denim shorts for the third time. The house party thumped with bass heavy enough to rattle teeth, and she already regretted coming. Somewhere in this suburban nightmare, seniors were stacked in their usual social pyramid - the popular kids at the apex, everyone else fighting for the lower tiers.

She ducked into the kitchen to escape, clutching her iPhone like a lifeline. No escape texts from Zoe. Typical.

"You look like you're plotting someone's murder."

Maya jumped. The guy leaning against the refrigerator was massive - avarsity jacket stretched across shoulders that belonged to someone who definitely didn't get bullied. Dark hair, rough hands, sleepy eyes that had seen way too many early morning football practices.

"Bear," someone called from the living room. "Yo Bear, get your ass in here!"

He flinched. "That's not my actual name, by the way."

"What is it?"

"Ethan," he said. "But freshman year I carried this junior home when he got wasted at homecoming, and apparently I did it like a mama bear carrying her cub. The name stuck." He cracked open a can of sparkling water. "You're Maya, right? You sit behind me in English."

Her stomach did something annoying and fluttery. "You know my name?"

"I know you write the best responses to Mr. Reynolds' questions," he said. "And you draw tiny pyramids in the margins of your notes whenever you're bored."

She stared at him. The cute, untouchable senior noticed her? This had to be a prank.

"I'm supposed to be at lacrosse camp," he said suddenly. "Full ride to Duke next year if I don't mess up my knee again. But my dad thinks 'pyramid schemes' are real investment opportunities and lost his college fund. So I'm working construction this summer instead."

The admission hung between them, raw and unexpected. Maya thought of her own parents' divorce, the way she'd stopped talking about it because nobody wanted to hear depressing things.

"I wanted to get out of here," she said. "My phone said 'fake an emergency' but I just... I don't know."

Ethan smiled, and it transformed his whole face. "Stay. The party's actually in the backyard. And I've been wanting to ask you what those pyramid doodles mean."

Her palm stopped sweating. The pyramid of social hierarchy suddenly felt very far away.

"They're about power," she said. "How we build ourselves up by standing on each other."

He nodded like she'd said something profound. "Deep. Want to go see if they actually have those cream soda floats I heard about?"

She gripped her iPhone tight and grinned. "Yes. A thousand times yes."