The Social Pyramid Scheme

Maya's palms were sweating, like, actual droplets. Not cute. She gripped the red plastic cup harder, trying to look casual as she leaned against the backyard fence.

"You good?" Marcus asked, appearing beside her with his annoyingly perfect smile. He was on varsity everything, had somehow never had a pimple in his entire life, and currently sat at the top of Jefferson High's social pyramid without even trying.

"Yeah, just... needed air," Maya lied. The pool party was in full swing—people screaming, doing cannonballs, being embarrassingly loud. And she was hiding. Again.

Marcus raised an eyebrow. "You've been out here for twenty minutes. The party's that way." He pointed at the chaos.

Maya sighed. "My mom made me take this vitamin thing for 'focus' before I left, and now I feel weird. Like, what if I say something dumb? What if I forget how to swim? What if—"

"Maya." Marcus laughed, actually laughed. "You're overthinking. Everyone's either tipsy or pretending to be. Nobody's watching you that closely."

"Easy for you to say. You're the king of the pyramid. I'm like, the sedimentary layer underneath."

"That's not even a real layer," he said. "Also, pyramids were built by slaves. Not exactly goals."

She snorted before she could stop herself.

"See? You can be normal," he grinned. Then his expression got weirdly serious. "I actually came over here because Jake was being a jerk about your karaoke video, and I wanted to say it was lowkey iconic."

Maya's brain short-circuited. "You... saw it?"

"Everyone saw it. In a good way," he said quickly. "You were singing to your pet goldfish or whatever? It was authentic."

"Gerald," she said softly. "His name was Gerald. He died last week."

Marcus's face dropped. "Oh. Maya, I'm so sorry—"

"No, it's okay," she said, and realized she wasn't lying. The weird weight in her chest had lightened. "He was three years old. That's like, a hundred in fish years. He lived a full life."

Marcus was quiet for a second. Then: "Wanna get back out there? I'll do a terrible cannonball. You can film it. Embarrassing content for the people."

Maya looked at the water glittering under the string lights, at all the people she'd been avoiding. She thought about Gerald, who'd spent his entire life swimming in circles in a tiny bowl, never knowing there was an ocean.

"Yeah," she said, finally letting go of her red cup. "Yeah, let's go."

Her palms were still sweating. But somehow, that didn't matter anymore.