Green Between My Teeth

The pool party glimmered before me like a social minefield I wasn't ready to cross. I stood there in my orange towel—which had seemed fine at home but now screamed 'look at me'—while everyone else moved like they'd been born knowing how to exist at sixteen without questioning every breath.

My hair frizzed in the humidity, already betraying me before I'd even jumped in. Nice hair, Maya. The voice in my head sounded suspiciously like my older sister's, the one who'd graduated high school with perfect attendance and a boyfriend who played soccer.

"You coming in?" Jake. Jake with the messy-dark hair and the smile that made my stomach do things I didn't want to analyze.

"Yeah, just warming up," I lied. Warming up what? My anxiety?

The swimming part wasn't even the issue. I'd been on swim team since seventh grade. The issue was the afterward—the sitting around with wet hair and zero makeup while trying to act normal around someone I'd had a crush on since he moved here in October.

I jumped in. The water was perfect. The water didn't care if I said something awkward. The water didn't notice that I'd overplucked my eyebrows that morning because I was nervous.

When I surfaced, Jake was floating nearby. "My mom's making spinach dip," he said. "It's actually decent."

Spinach. The vegetable I'd refused to eat until braces forced me to reconsider my relationship with all foods green and leafy. "Sure," I said, and then something terrible happened—I smiled without checking the mirror first.

He looked at me. Then he laughed—not mean, but actual laughing. "You've got—" he pointed to his own teeth, "spinach."

I wanted to dissolve. I wanted to become one with the pool water forever. But instead I wiped my teeth and said, "Classic me."

"It's cool," Jake said. "Last week I had popcorn stuck in my braces all through third period. Nobody told me until lunch."

Something loosened in my chest. "Seriously?"

"Sarah finally told me. I sat there feeling all smooth and mysterious with popcorn in my teeth."

We laughed. The orange towel didn't matter anymore. The hair situation would resolve itself. And the spinach dip was actually pretty good.