Vitamin C for Confidence

The first day of sophomore year, I walked into Westwood High feeling like I'd swallowed a bottle of vitamin supplements without water—chalky, weird, and fundamentally wrong.

My mom, in her infinite wellness-phase wisdom, had started me on these giant orange horse pills that morning. "For immunity," she'd said, pressing them into my palm like they were magical confidence boosters.Spoiler: they were not.

I found my locker, strategically located between the bathrooms and the stairwell to nowhere. Great. Just as I spun the combination—twenty-eight, fourteen, thirty-two—something brushed against my leg.

I jumped, dumping my backpack onto the floor. A massive orange cat sat there, tail curled neatly around its paws, looking at me like I was the intruder.

"Seriously?" I hissed.

The cat blinked. It was wearing a collar that read VITAMIN in sparkly letters.

"Vitamin?" A voice behind me.

I turned to find Maya Torres leaning against the lockers, arms crossed, grinning like she'd just won the lottery. She was wearing a crop top that showed off her hip tattoo—a tiny cat silhouette.

"That's... not my cat," I said, gesturing to Vitamin, who had now decided my abandoned backpack was his new throne.

"No kidding." Maya pushed off the lockers. "I'm Maya. That's Mr. Henderson's cat from across the street. He's always escaping. You new?"

"Alex," I said. "And yeah. Today's my first day."

"Welcome to the jungle." She gestured down the hall. "Locker placement is crucial. You're in the Dead Zone—nobody hangs out here unless they're avoiding drama or having an existential crisis."

"Great," I said, trying to shoo Vitamin off my bag. "Exactly where I want to be."

"Better than the bull pen," Maya said, nodding toward the crowded main hallway. "That's where the popular kids hold court. Jason and his crew? Total bulls—always charging, never thinking."

I snorted. "Bulls. Got it."

"Hey." Maya stepped closer, her voice dropping. "You seem chill. You should sit with us at lunch. We're not bulls. We're more like... cats. We observe, we judge, we nap."

Vitamin chose that moment to jump onto my shoulder and purr directly into my ear.

"I think that's a yes," Maya said, grinning. "See you at lunch, Alex. Don't let the bulls get you down."

As she walked away, I realized something: maybe those orange vitamins weren't so useless after all. Because for the first time all morning, I wasn't feeling weird or wrong or fundamentally out of place.

I was just Alex, with a cat named Vitamin on my shoulder and a lunch date with someone who got it.

High school might still be terrifying. But at least I wasn't facing it alone.