The Vitamin Cat Incident

Maya's first shift at GreenLife Wellness should've been straightforward. Restock shelves. Smile at customers. Don't accidentally knock over expensive protein powder containers with her backpack (she'd already done that twice).

Then the woman with the emotional support cat walked in.

"Excuse me," the woman said, adjusting her designer sunglasses inside. "Bear needs his vitamins."

The orange tabby cat tucked in her designer purse blinked slowly. Maya blinked too. "Bear?"

"His name is Bear," she said, like Maya was the weird one. "He's very picky about his supplements. Do you have anything organic? Preferably wild-caught?"

Maya's coworker Carlos was somehow "on break" (again) so she was alone. Alone with a woman asking about wild-caught vitamins for her purse cat while Maya was still figuring out how to work the register.

"We have these organic multivitamins," Maya offered, gesturing to the display she'd just restocked. "They're... uh... formulated for optimal wellness."

The woman picked up the bottle. "Bear prefers gummies. Do you have gummy vitamins? He'll literally throw a tantrum."

A literal cat tantrum. Maya couldn't believe this was her life sometimes.

"Gummy section's right over there," she managed, feeling like she was hallucinating. The woman waddled over, Bear's tail poking out of the purse like a fluffy orange antenna.

Her phone buzzed. Group chat blowing up: everyone making plans for the weekend without her again. Maya stared at the screen, that familiar stomach-drop feeling hitting hard. She always managed to miss everything, always stuck working or studying or just... being invisible.

"These are perfect!" The woman held up a bottle of peach-flavored gummy vitamins. "Bear, look! Your favorites!"

The cat let out the world's most unimpressed meow.

Maya rung her up, hands shaking slightly because she still wasn't totally confident on the register and this woman was watching her like a hawk. "That'll be twenty-four ninety-nine."

"Oh, one more thing," the woman said, digging through her purse. "Got any coupons?"

Maya wanted to die. "Let me check." She'd been working here three weeks and still didn't know where anything was.

"You're doing great," the woman said suddenly, while Bear decided to investigate a display of energy bars. "First job?"

Maya nodded, feeling her face heat up. "Is it that obvious?"

"Honey, I've been working retail for twenty years. I can spot the newbies from across the parking lot." She winked. "Bear used to come to work with me at Sephora. He once knocked over an entire display of perfume. Three hundred dollars of "eau de toilette" all over the floor."

"No way."

"Way. My manager literally cried. But you know what?" She handed Maya a coupon she'd found. "You'll get the hang of it. And if Bear can survive Sephora, you can definitely survive GreenLife."

Bear meowed in agreement, somehow managing to look smug.

Maya walked home feeling lighter than she had in weeks. The vitamin cat lady had somehow made her day better. Her phone buzzed again - someone had noticed she was quiet and asked if she wanted to come over later.

She texted back: yes. Because sometimes the weirdest days turned out to be the best ones. And because she'd finally realized she didn't have to bear everything alone - even if she did need to work on speaking up more.

That night, she Googled "wild-caught vitamins" just to see if that was actually a thing. (It wasn't. But Bear probably didn't care.)