The Vitamin Pyramid Scheme

Maya stuffed another bottle of vitamin D3 supplements onto the shelf at GreenLife, trying to ignore how her hands shook. Jake, the varsity quarterback who somehow always ended up in her aisle, was literally three feet away.

"Hey Maya," he said, all golden retriever energy. "You good at history?"

She almost knocked over a display of fish oil. "Uh, depends?"

"I need help with this Egypt project. Mr. Harrison's being extra about it." He gestured to his phone. "We gotta build a model pyramid and explain the sphinx riddle thing. I'm terrible at this stuff."

Maya's brain did three backflips. Jake. Her Jake-who-sat-two-rows-back-in-English Jake. Asking HER for help.

"I can help," she said, way too fast. "I mean, yeah, I know that stuff."

"Sick," he said, flashing that smile that made her forget basic vocabulary words. "You wanna come over after your shift? My mom's making those vitamins gummies you like."

Her what?

"The... gummy vitamins?" she managed.

"Yeah, you mentioned them last week." His phone buzzed. "Gotta run — practice. 5 okay?"

"Yeah, 5's perfect."

She watched him walk away, half expecting to wake up from a dream. But then her boss Dave emerged from the back room like a crypt keeper.

"Maya, I need you to man the register. And fix that vitamin C display before customers start thinking we got robbed."

The social pyramid at school had always been crystal clear: Jake and the athletes at the top, then the popular kids, then everyone else, and somewhere near the bottom, Maya and her friends who got excited about bookstore sales and correctly identifying birds.

But now here she was, walking up his driveway at 5 PM sharp, carrying her old Egypt project from sixth grade because she was extra like that.

"You came!" Jake opened the door, wearing a sweatshirt that made him look unfairly good. "My mom's obsessed with those gummy vitamins — she bought like five bottles because you said they were good."

"Wait, your mom listens to MY recommendations?" Maya stepped inside, her heart doing that thing where it forgot how to rhythm.

"Dude, you literally know everything about supplements. You're basically a genius." He led her to his room, where a half-built cardboard pyramid sat on his desk. "So, the sphinx..."