The Social Pyramid Scheme

Maya felt like a total spy, lurking three rows deep in the cafeteria, watching THE table. Where Lucas sat. Where Jenna sat. Where the pyramid of popularity had been carefully constructed since sixth grade, and Maya somehow always ended up at the base.

"You're doing it again," Kayla said, sliding onto the bench beside her. "The creeping."

"It's not creeping," Maya protested, though her phone told a different story—her thumb had accidentally double-tapped Jenna's story from literally two minutes ago. "It's research."

"For what? Your FBI application?" Kayla snorted. "Girl, you gotta get over Lucas. He's been dating Jenna for, like, three months."

Three months and twelve days. But who was counting?

The worst part? Lucas had been Maya's bear. Her teddy bear comfort person ever since that disastrous sixth-grade dance when she'd spilled fruit punch on her white dress and he'd handed her his hoodie without laughing. Now he wore Jenna's varsity jacket around school like it was his own skin.

Whatever. Maya had bigger problems. Like the fact that she'd somehow agreed to join the new padel club because Kayla said it was "giving major European energy" and honestly, Maya needed something—anything—to make her feel less basic.

"Look," Kayla said, pointing toward the sign-up sheet on the wall. "Lucas joined too."

Maya's stomach did that awful flippy thing. "Great. Just what I need—more opportunities to embarrass myself in front of him."

First practice was a disaster. Maya whiffed the ball so hard she nearly took out the gym teacher. Lucas, naturally, moved like a fox—quick, clever, annoyingly graceful. But then Jenna showed up wearing those tiny padel outfits that looked ridiculous but also somehow perfect, and suddenly Maya was fighting back tears in the middle of a beginner's clinic.

"You good?" Lucas asked, jogging over.

"Peachy," Maya said, wiping her eyes with her wrist. "Just allergies."

"You always get allergies when you're about to cry," he said softly. Then he did the thing—started bouncing a ball on his racquet, like they were back in sixth grade and he was trying to make her smile. "Remember when you tried to spy on Sarah's birthday party and got stuck in that tree?"

Maya laughed. "We said we'd never talk about that again."

"We say a lot of things." His eyes flicked toward Jenna, then back to Maya. "You know, padel's actually kind of terrible. I only joined because..."

"Because Jenna?"

"Because someone told me you were joining." He shrugged. "Turns out, rumors aren't always wrong."

Maya's heart slammed against her ribs like it was trying to break out. The pyramid wasn't just crumbling—it was being rebuilt. And for once, she wasn't at the bottom.