The Pyramid Scheme
Maya's mom had left the fruit bowl on the counter again. Three oranges sat in a perfect little pyramid, like some kind of weird domestic art installation. Maya grabbed one, its waxy skin cool against her palm, and shoved it in her backpack before her little sister could claim it for her absurd 'fruit aesthetic' TikTok videos.
"You're taking my pyramid prop!" Lily yelled from the living room.
"It's a fruit, Lil. Not a prop."
Maya slipped out the door, her heart already doing that nervous flutter thing. Today was the day. The day she'd finally DM Mateo back instead of just staring at his profile like some certified weirdo.
Her iPhone buzzed in her pocket – probably another notification from the group chat roasting her for being MIA at Jordan's party last night. She'd bailed because her social battery had hit empty, and now she was paying the price in FOMO and FOMO-adjacent anxiety.
The bus ride was its usual chaos: sophomore boys screaming Fortnite terms at maximum volume, someone blasting terrible music through their phone speakers (why do people do this?), and the perpetual mystery of why the back row always smelled like artificial grape and bad decisions.
Maya found her usual seat and pulled out her phone. Her thumb hovered over Mateo's profile. Three little dots. The modern equivalent of throwing yourself off a cliff and hoping you remembered how to fly.
"Hey, sorry I missed you at the party," she typed. Then deleted. Too desperate.
"Party was crazy lol" – no, she wasn't there.
"Hey" – simple, elegant, terrifying.
Her cat, Mochi, had more game than her. Mochi just stared at people until they gave her attention. It was iconic behavior, really. Maybe Maya should just start staring at people in class until they talked to her.
The bus hit a pothole. Maya's phone flew out of her hand – slow motion, horror movie style – and landed directly in the open backpack of the guy in front of her. Freshman. Named Marcus or something. He was currently asleep.
Maya's soul left her body.
She had two options: (1) Let him discover a random girl's phone in his bag later and think she's some kind of phone-stealing creep, or (2) Wake him up and experience maximum awkwardness immediately.
"Hey," she whispered. No response. "HEY."
He jumped, nearly knocking his own phone into the aisle. "What? I'm up, I'm up – wait, are you Maya from English?"
"Yeah, sorry, my phone fell in your bag and—"
"Oh! No worries, honestly." He reached in, handed it back, then paused. "Hey, random question, but do you like oranges? Because I literally have like five in my lunch and my mom keeps packing them like I'm some kind of pirate who needs to prevent scurvy."
Maya stared at him. Then at the orange in her own backpack. Then back at him.
"Dude," she said. "I would literally take one off your hands."
They ended up sitting together for the rest of the ride, discussing the conspiracy theory that the school cafeteria puts something in the pizza to make it simultaneously inedible yet irresistible. Marcus was weirdly funny, in an unexpected way. Like, he did impressions of the teachers that were actually accurate.
When they got off at school, her phone buzzed. Mateo had replied.
"hey!! yeah wish you'd been there, jordan was telling everyone about that time you—"
Maya couldn't even care about the rest of the sentence. Sometimes the universe had a funny way of showing you that the thing you thought you wanted wasn't actually the thing you needed.
She took a bite of her orange as she walked into first period, juice running down her chin like a total disaster. Marcus waved from across the hall. Maya smiled, wiped her face, and decided that maybe high school wasn't completely terrible after all.
At least not today.