The Pyramid Scheme
Maya's eyes burned like she'd been staring at her phone screen for three hours straight. Which she had. The Discord server was blowing up about Jordan's party tonight — the one everyone was going to except her, apparently.
"You coming?" flashed across her screen from Kai. Maya typed and deleted four different responses before settling on: "IDK, still grounded from the cable bill incident lol"
Truth was, she wasn't grounded. Her parents had forgotten the whole thing after she accidentally ordered every premium channel. But the thought of actually showing up, of standing there awkwardly while everyone else vibed and talked about things she didn't understand? That made her feel like a zombie moving through someone else's life.
She opened her streaming setup. The whole pyramid of precarious tech — her dad's old monitor balanced on textbooks, the webcam duct-taped to a lamp, the mess of tangled cords behind her desk — was basically a disaster waiting to happen. But it was HER disaster.
On Jordan's private story, she saw it: a sneak peek of the party setup. Fairy lights. Snacks. People who actually knew how to exist in social situations without overthinking every breath.
Maya clicked off her phone and did something stupid. She grabbed her laptop and decided to stream anyway. Mid-stream, Jordan himself joined the chat.
"Wait, your whole setup is literally held together by duct tape and prayers," he typed. Everyone in the chat went wild. Maya felt her face burning but kept playing, kept talking, kept being weirdly herself.
"Dude, you should've come to the party," Jordan typed. "We're all just sitting here watching your stream anyway."
Maya stared at the screen. All those people, at the 'cool' party, watching HER mess around with her janky setup? She laughed so hard she almost knocked over her entire tech pyramid.
"Hold up," she said into her mic. "You guys want me to come over?"
"BRING THE DUCT TAPE," Jordan replied.
Maya grabbed her jacket. Sometimes the most awkward option was the right one.