The Vitamin Gummy Incident

I wasn't actually a spy, but my sister Maya swore I was. "You're always lurking, Maya hissed, giving me that side-eye that could curdle milk. "Just lurking in doorways, being weird."

I was fourteen, and lurking was basically my personality. Lurking, avoiding social interactions, and compulsively checking if I'd remembered to lock the bathroom door three times.

The obsession started with vitamin gummies. Mom bought this massive bottle from Costco—straw flavored, shaped like little bears, supposedly packed with everything a growing teenager needed. "Take two daily," she'd said, all cheerful and unaware she'd just created a monster.

Two became four. Four became six. Suddenly I was stress-eating vitamins like they were candy, which technically they were, but NERDY candy.

Running was my escape. Every afternoon at 3:45 PM, I'd lace up my sketchers and bolt. Around the neighborhood, past Mrs. Henderson's house (she had like fifty garden gnomes), through the park where the cool kids smoked behind the slide. I wasn't running FROM anything, obviously. Just running. Totally normal teenage behavior.

Then there was the cat situation.

Mr. Whiskers belonged to the elderly neighbors, but he spent 80% of his time at our house, judging me from the windowsill. Orange, fluffy, completely unimpressed by my vitamin-induced existential crisis.

One Tuesday, I was mid-panic attack—what if I'd taken TOO MANY vitamins? What if my hair started falling out? What if I'd accidentally become dependent on gummy bear nutrients?—when Mr. Whiskers walked in, headbutted my shin, and just stared. Those unimpressed cat eyes.

"You need help," Maya said from the doorway. She wasn't wrong.

So we made a deal: I'd actually talk to a therapist about the anxiety thing, and she'd stop calling me a spy. Also, I had to stop hoarding vitamins like they were going out of style.

Mr. Whiskers seemed approving. Or maybe he just wanted treats. Some things are impossible to interpret, even when you're NOT secretly a spy.