The Social Pyramid Scheme

Maya stared at the bottle of premium face serum, feeling exactly like the zombie she'd pretended to be at Jackson's party last weekend—dead inside, just going through the motions.

"Trust me, this opportunity is HUGE," Chloe said, eyes bright with that terrifying intensity. "My upline says she made three grand last month. You just need to recruit three friends, and they recruit three friends—"

A pyramid scheme. Actual, literal multilevel marketing, and somehow Chloe had roped half the sophomore class into this madness. Maya's phone buzzed in her pocket—probably her mom wondering why she'd "borrowed" forty dollars from her purse.

Then she remembered: water. The emergency stash under her bed for when life felt like drowning.

"I need to use your bathroom," Maya lied, and fled.

Chloe's cat, a judgmental orange tabby named Mango, sat on the bathroom counter watching her with eyes that said, *really, this is your life now?*

"I know," Maya whispered, splashing cold water on her face. "I'm the worst."

But when she looked in the mirror, she didn't see the monster who'd stolen from her mom. She saw someone who'd said yes because Chloe was a friend—well, a friend-friend, the kind you'd known since kindergarten but who made you question everything since high school started changing everyone.

The cat meowed, jumped down, and head-butted her ankle.

Outside, Chloe's voice carried through the door: "...you just have to believe in the product!"

Maya's hands shook. Why was saying no the hardest thing? Why was the social pyramid at school—popularity tiers, who sat where at lunch, who got invited to what—more terrifying than an actual zombie apocalypse? At least with zombies you knew who the enemies were.

She wiped her face, met Mango's yellow eyes, and made a choice.

"Chloe," Maya said, walking back into the living room. "I can't. I'm sorry, but this isn't okay—asking friends for money, recruiting people into something sketchy. And I took forty bucks from my mom to buy this and I have to give it back."

Silence. Then: "Oh."

"But," Maya added, "I can help you return everything. And if you want to come over and watch zombie movies and complain about how much high school sucks, my cat's judgment-free."

Chloe studied her, then slumped. "That sounds... actually really good."

"And," Maya said, "next time someone pitches you a 'life-changing opportunity,' remember: real friends don't make you pay forty dollars to prove it."