The Pyramid Scheme

My palm was sweating so hard I thought my iPhone might slip right out of my hand and shatter on the cafeteria floor. Not that it would matter — I wasn't exactly scrolling through a flood of notifications anyway.

"You coming to Jake's party?" Marcos asked, sliding into the seat across from me. His baseball jersey was stained with something that looked suspiciously like chocolate milk, but he still managed to look effortless.

I opened my mouth, closed it. My social life was basically a pyramid scheme where I kept investing nothing and somehow expecting different results.

"Maybe?" I managed.

"Dude, it's gonna be lit. They're attempting the record — you know, the Solo cup pyramid? Seven feet?"

I nodded like I knew what he was talking about. I didn't.

That Friday, I found myself running toward Jake's house, my sneakers slapping against the pavement like they were trying to escape my feet. The bass was already thumping through the walls.

Inside, the air smelled like cheap body spray and something fruity. In the center of the living room, a precarious tower of red cups rose toward the ceiling. A girl I'd seen in AP Bio was on a stepladder, carefully placing the final cup.

"Don't breathe," someone whispered.

"Don't even blink," another voice said.

I held my breath. The girl's hand hovered, shaking.

Then the front door slammed and someone yelled "COPS!"

The room exploded. People scattered like cockroaches. I was running before I even processed why, ducking out the back door into the alley, heart hammering against my ribs.

"Hey!"

I spun around. Marcos was there, bent over, hands on his knees. He looked at me, then at the cup pyramid still standing perfectly inside.

"We just ran for absolutely no reason," he said, and then we were both laughing, bent over in the alleyway while the party emptied behind us.

"Your palm," I noticed, grabbing his hand. "It's shaking."

"Yours too," he said, and he didn't let go.

We sat on a crate behind the garage as the chaos died down, my iPhone buzzing with texts from my mom asking when I'd be home. But for the first time all year, I didn't feel like I was on the bottom of some invisible pyramid.

I was just right here, palm against palm, while someone else's record-breaking tower stood unbroken inside.