The Vitamin Pyramid Scheme

Maya looked like a straight-up zombie. Three weeks into junior year and she was already running on fumes and iced coffee, her skin doing that weird gray thing it did when stress hit level 100.

"You'd have WAY more energy if you just tried the supplements," Chloe said, sliding yet another colorful packet across the cafeteria table. "My upline says she used to be tired all the time too, and now she's literally crushing it. She bought her mom a car, Maya. A CAR."

Maya stared at the vitamin packet. Neon orange. Capital letters promising REVOLUTIONARY ENERGY and TRANSFORM YOUR LIFE. This was week two of Chloe's new "wellness journey" which was definitely a pyramid scheme, but nobody knew how to tell her without making it weird.

"I'm good," Maya said, pushing the packet back. "I have a chem test to fail."

"You're always so NEGATIVE," Chloe sighed, flipping her perfectly flat-ironed hair. "That's why you're stuck at the bottom of the social pyramid. Mindset is EVERYTHING."

The social pyramid. Maya almost laughed. Freshman year, she would've done anything to climb it — worn the right clothes, said the right things, pretended to like people who made her feel small. But something about sixteen hit different. The pyramid didn't matter anymore when she realized the people at the top were just regular people with better Instagram angles and more vodka.

The bell rang. Everyone shuffled toward the door like the living dead, another day in the grind.

"Just THINK about it," Chloe called, already pulling out her phone to post another selfie with a product. "We could be a POWER DUO."

Maya walked to chem, feeling light for the first time in weeks. She'd take zombie exhaustion over fake energy any day. At least her tired was real.