Green Between My Teeth

The cafeteria hummed with Friday energy, and I was officially spiraling. Jordan, the human equivalent of a golden retriever, was walking toward my table. My heart was doing that embarrassingly frantic thing it always did when he was near.

"Hey, Leo," he said, sliding into the seat across from me. "You coming to Sarah's party tonight?"

My brain short-circuited. Jordan. Talking to me. About a party. This was it—the moment I'd been lowkey obsessing over since seventh grade.

"Yeah," I managed, trying to play it cool. "Probably."

I'd just eaten what I thought was a normal lunch. Sandwich, chips, some salad because my mom insisted I needed more vegetables. I felt confident. I felt ready.

"Cool," Jordan said, leaning in. "I was hoping you'd be there. We should—"

He stopped. His eyes went wide. Then he started laughing. Not mean laughing, but that uncontrollable, wheezy laughter that takes over your whole body.

"What?" I asked, suddenly self-conscious.

"Spinach," he choked out. "You've got spinach—" He gestured to his own front tooth. "It's been there the whole time we've been talking."

My face burned. Of course. Because the universe had decided that Leo Martinez's coming-of-age arc required maximum humiliation.

My cat, Mittens, had been acting weird all morning—like, staring-into-space-creepy weird—and now I knew why. She was an oracle. She'd seen this moment in the cards and tried to warn me.

I grabbed a napkin. "Oh my god. How long?"

"Since you said 'yeah,'" Jordan said, still laughing. "It's fine. It's actually kind of iconic."

"Iconic," I repeated, now rubbing at my teeth like my life depended on it. "Sure. Let's go with that."

"No, seriously." Jordan's laughter died down. He looked at me, and suddenly he wasn't laughing anymore. "It's kind of—wait, don't kill me—but it's kind of endearing? Like, you're all nervous and trying to be smooth, and then there's this spinach situation."

"Endearing," I said flatly. "The bar is in hell."

"The bar is exactly where it should be." He smiled, and my stomach did that thing again. "Anyway, about tonight. If you're still coming, I mean. Unless the spinach trauma has scared you off social interactions forever."

I looked at him—really looked at him. The laughing, the way he didn't make me feel weird about it, the fact that he was still sitting there.

"I'll be there," I said. "But I'm brushing my teeth for twenty minutes first."

"Fair." Jordan stood up. "See you tonight, Leo."

He walked away, and I watched him go, feeling strangely okay with everything. Maybe growing up wasn't about being perfect all the time. Maybe it was about the spinach moments—the messy, embarrassing, completely human ones—and the people who stuck around through them.

My phone buzzed. A text from my best friend: "heard what happened. iconic behavior. we're discussing tonight."

I smiled. Yeah. Maybe I'd survive this whole teenager thing after all.