The Vitamin Incident

The cable guy was supposed to come between 8 and 5, which basically meant my mom had trapped me in the house all Saturday. I was stuck watching whatever weird stuff was on regular TV instead of my usual streaming marathon.

"Take your vitamins," my mom called from the kitchen, like I was still seven instead of sixteen.

I grabbed the bottle from the counter, but my hands were so sweaty from boredom-induced anxiety that the whole thing slipped. Vitamin gummies exploded everywhere, bouncing across the linoleum like colorful, chewy rain. One landed perfectly in my open palm.

"For real?" I muttered, staring at it like it had personally offended me.

My phone buzzed. **Marcus: everyone's at the baseball field, you coming?**

Baseball. In July. In Texas. Because apparently my friends had collectively lost their minds.

**Me: Can't. Cable guy.**

**Marcus: again?? you're so lame rn**

I groaned and threw myself onto the couch, scrolling through social media while watching some random wildlife documentary. A fox darted across the screen, orange and impossibly fast, and I wished I could be that fox—sleek and purposeful instead of stuck in my living room in old gym shorts.

The doorbell rang.

"Finally," I said, jumping up. But when I swung the door open, it wasn't the cable guy. It was Maya.

"Hey," she said, shifting her weight, her palm tree necklace catching the sunlight. "Marcus said you couldn't come to baseball... so I figured maybe you wanted company?"

My stomach did that embarrassing flutter thing. Maya. THE Maya. The one who sat behind me in history and smelled like coconut everything.

"Uh, yeah," I said way too fast. "I mean, if you want. It's pretty boring though."

She shrugged and stepped inside. "Boring's underrated."

We ended up watching the fox documentary for three hours while she made fun of my vitamin incident and I pretended not to be mesmerizingly nervous. The cable guy never showed.

Some weekends, I realized, the best things aren't on your schedule at all.