The Friendship Pyramid

My cat Mochi was the only one who didn't treat me differently after the Incident. She'd just curl up on my chest and purr like nothing had changed, which was exactly what I needed when my phone stayed silent for three days straight.

The pyramid of our school's social hierarchy had shifted, and apparently, I'd slid down several levels without noticing. Freshman year was supposed to be about climbing up, not down. But that was before baseball tryouts, before I made the varsity team as a backup outfielder, and before my best friend Sarah decided I was suddenly too cool to hang out with her theater friends anymore.

"You're basically a zombie friend now," she'd said, using that weird phrase everyone was saying. "Like, you're there but not really there because you're always at practice."

I hadn't known how to explain that I wasn't trying to ghost her. I was just tired. Baseball was exhausting, and the pressure to prove I belonged on varsity as a freshman was eating me alive.

The breaking point came when I saw Sarah sitting with the popular crowd at lunch—the literal top of the pyramid—laughing like she'd been part of their squad forever. She caught my eye and looked away. That stung worse than getting beaned in the head during batting practice.

I went home and buried my face in Mochi's soft fur, letting her low rumbles vibrate through my chest. At least cats didn't care about social climbing or baseball stats or who sat with whom at lunch.

The next day, I walked past Sarah's table and kept walking. I found myself at the baseball field, even though practice wasn't for hours. My teammate Marcus was there, already in uniform and fielding ground balls.

"Rough day?" he asked, tossing me a glove.

"Something like that."

"Wanna play catch? It's cheaper than therapy."

So we played. And for the first time in weeks, I actually felt real—like a person, not a zombie friend or a climbing social pyramid scheme. Just a kid with a glove and a friend who didn't care about any of that other stuff.

Mochi was waiting at the window when I got home. Some things, I realized, didn't need to change.