Cat Hair and Catastrophes

My hair looked like a lawnmower had a tantrum on top of my head. That's what happens when you try to give yourself layers at 2 AM while overthinking your entire existence. Now it was freshman year, and I was running ten minutes late with what could only be described as a choppy mullet situation.

"Maya! You're gonna miss the bus!" my mom yelled from somewhere in the house.

I grabbed my bag and bolted out the door, but Mr. Whiskers—that scrawny stray cat who'd adopted our porch last week—decided today was the day he'd weave between my legs like he was auditioning for a triathlon hazard. I almost face-planted, but I kept running, heart pounding, already dreading first period.

Lunch was my only salvation until it wasn't. I sat with Jordan—Jordan, who wore vintage band tees and had that effortless dark hair that just worked—and finally worked up the courage to actually talk. Not just "hey" but, like, conversation.

"So," I said, channeling confidence I definitely didn't feel. "Your playlist yesterday was actually fire."

Jordan smiled. "Yeah? What'd you think of the last track?"

I went for it. I smiled back, said something brilliant about how the bridge hit different, and that's when I felt it—that weird fuzzy sensation on my front tooth. I excused myself to the bathroom and there it was: a giant, vibrant piece of spinach from my lunch, front and center like it was paying rent to live there.

I wanted to evaporate. Honestly, just cease to exist.

But when I came back, red-faced and ready to transfer schools, Jordan was still sitting there. And they were laughing—not mean laughing, but like, actual laughing.

"I was trying to figure out how to tell you," Jordan said. "I have spinach in my teeth too."

We both lost it. And somehow that was it—the disaster moment that broke everything open. We talked about their cat's weird obsession with cardboard boxes. I told them about my haircut mishap. They said it looked edgy, said the messiness worked.

"Rookie mistake," they said about the spinach. "I did that with a poppy seed bagel last week. Talked to my crush for twenty minutes before I noticed."

Wait. Crush?

Maybe freshman year wouldn't be completely terrible after all.