Bear Trap Friday

Maya's iPhone buzzed for the third time in two minutes. Jake was texting her again, asking if she was still coming to Chloe's party tonight. She stared at the screen, thumbs hovering, then typed: *yeah be there soon!*

She wasn't ready at all. Her hair was doing that weird flippy thing it did when she was stressed, and her mom had bought spinach smoothie ingredients instead of the normal stuff. Because apparently this was the week Maya decided to become "that healthy girl" for Jake.

The smoothie tasted like literal grass. She forced it down anyway, checking her reflection in the microwave door. Cute enough? Maybe. The phone buzzed again. *everyone asking where u r*

She grabbed her backpack and started running down the street, except her left sneaker was basically falling apart and caught on a crack in the sidewalk. She faceplanted, spinach smoothie splashing across her white shirt like she'd been attacked by a radioactive vegetable.

"Are you kidding me right now?" she groaned, wiping green goo from her favorite shirt.

Her phone slipped from her hand and skittered into the storm drain. Perfect. Just perfect. She lay there on the sidewalk, staring up at the sky, considering just moving to Antarctica and changing her name to something that didn't mean "beautiful flower" in some language her mom found on Pinterest.

That's when Mrs. Patterson from next door leaned out her window. "Everything okay, bear?"

"Bear." Her grandma's nickname for her since she was five, because apparently she had this tendency to hibernate under blankets whenever life got too loud. Now the whole neighborhood knew it.

"Fine," Maya called back, standing up. She looked like a spinach monster. Her phone was gone. Jake was waiting. And she was about to show up to the biggest party of the semester looking like she'd lost a fight with a salad bar.

But you know what? She started walking anyway. Because Jake would have to deal with spinach-stained Maya, and the girls at school could judge all they wanted, and maybe—just maybe—she'd order a real burger when she got there.

Being someone else was exhausting anyway. Time to just be bear. Spinach stains and all.