The Orange Vitamin Incident

Maya's phone buzzed during third period. Tyler was having people over after the game Friday. Her stomach did that familiar flutter thing — the one she'd been trying to ignore since he'd moved here in October.

By Friday night, Maya's carefully curated aesthetic was on point: vintage oversized hoodie, curated messy hair, that specific shade of eyeliner that said I'm not trying but I definitely am. She grabbed her signature contribution to every gathering: her mom's fancy **vitamin** water from the fancy grocery store. It was expensive, it was aesthetic, and it said I care about wellness but I'm also chill.

Except when she grabbed a bottle from the fridge, she didn't grab the lemon-lime. She grabbed the **orange** ginger immune booster. The one that tasted like someone dissolved a pharmacy in a juice box.

By the time she realized her mistake, she was already at Tyler's house. The basement was dim and smelled like teen spirit and something burning. Everyone had red Solo cups except Maya, who was nursing her ridiculous orange wellness elixir like it was liquid gold.

"What even IS that?" Tyler asked, dropping onto the couch beside her. He was wearing that cologne that smelled like cedar and poor decisions.

"It's... artisanal?" Maya said, then winced. "My mom's really into gut health."

Tyler laughed. Not mean laughing. Real laughing, shoulders shaking, head thrown back. "Dude, my mom tried to get me into those kombucha things once. I literally thought I was gonna die."

"Same energy," Maya said, and took a defiant sip. The **vitamin** water tasted like regret and ginger. Tyler was still watching her, amused, and suddenly Maya's heart was doing something way more complicated than that familiar flutter.

"Can I try?" he asked.

Maya froze. This was the moment. The classic teen movie moment where the hot guy tries the girl's drink and their fingers touch and something meaningful happens.

She handed him the bottle. Their fingers brushed. Tyler tilted it back and took a huge swig.

His face went through several stages of devastation.

"Oh my GOD," he gasped, coughing. "That's literally straight punishment."

"Told you," Maya grinned, and for the first time all night, she wasn't worrying about her aesthetic or her messy hair or whether her eyeliner said the right thing. She was just laughing with the cute boy who just drank something that tasted like a health food store exploded.

"You're evil," Tyler said, handing it back. "I respect that."

Later, when everyone else was playing beer pong with actual beer, Maya found herself on the back porch with Tyler, sharing her terrible orange wellness water and talking about everything and nothing until her phone died at 2 AM.

The next morning, her mom asked how the party was. Maya thought about Tyler's laugh, about the **water** that tasted like redemption, about how sometimes the worst-tasting things become your favorite memories.

"Fine," Maya said. "Just fine."

But she was smiling.