Vitamin Gummies and Bear Truths

The gummy **vitamin** sat on my tongue, that artificial orange taste I'd been trying to quit since seventh grade. Mom still left them on the counter every morning, like I hadn't grown six inches and started shaving.

"You taking those?" Jordan asked, leaning against my doorframe, phone in hand.

"Yeah, whatever."

Jordan was my best **friend** since fourth grade, when we both got sent to the principal's office for starting a"club" that was actually just us eating lunch behind the dumpsters. Now Jordan had straight As and a girlfriend who posted aesthetic sunset photos, while I had a dead-end summer job at the hardware store and an old **dog** who snored like a chainsaw.

Buster thumped his tail against the floorboards. He used to be my dad's dog before the divorce, before he moved to Portland and started a new family that probably had a golden retriever named something normal.

"My parents got me a car," Jordan said. "For my birthday. Not new, but it runs."

"That's sick, really." My stomach did that thing where it felt like someone was squeezing it like a stress ball.

We were supposed to be camping this weekend, just like every summer since we were twelve. But Jordan's family was going to the beach instead with people who had boats and money. I was stuck helping Mom sort through the attic, where I'd already found three **cable** knit sweaters I'd worn in middle school, back when I thought layering was a personality trait.

"Maybe next year," Jordan said, already halfway down the hall.

The bear showed up that evening while I was taking Buster for his walk. Not Winnie the Pooh cute—actual wild **bear**, about fifty feet away, looking at us like we were the ones intruding on its territory. Buster froze, then growled, and I grabbed his collar, my heart doing gymnastics in my chest.

The bear huffed, turned, and lumbered away like it had better places to be. Like it knew something about moving on when things got too crowded.

"Yeah," I whispered to Buster. "I feel that too."

Mom was asleep when I got back. The gummy vitamin sat on my nightstand where I'd thrown it. I opened the drawer and dropped it in with the other stuff I was trying to quit: old birthday cards from Dad, a ticket stub from a concert Jordan and I went to freshman year, a friendship bracelet that was finally falling apart.

Some things you outgrow. Some things you just learn to **bear**.