Green Between My Teeth

The spinach incident started it all.

I was at lunch with Maya—the girl I'd been low-key crushing on since September—when she pointed at my teeth and whispered, "You've got... something."

Three hours later, I'm standing on the padel court trying to look like I know what I'm doing. Because of course she's on the school team. Of course she invited me to tryouts. And of course I said yes even though I've never held a padel racket in my life.

"You're gripping it wrong," says Chloe, the team captain who's been giving me the sphinx treatment all afternoon—silent, judging, impossible to read. "Like you're scared of it."

I'm not scared of the racket. I'm scared of embarrassing myself in front of Maya, who's currently laughing with her friends on the sidelines. The laugh that sounds like wind chimes. The laugh that's definitely not about me.

Coach blows the whistle. "Drill time! Newbies, you're up."

My heart's doing that thing where it tries to escape through my throat. I step onto the court, racket slick with sweat. Chloe serves, and the ball comes at me fast and mean.

I swing. I miss. Completely.

But then something weird happens. My body sort of... knows what to do? I've played tennis with my dad since I was seven, and padel's similar but different—smaller court, no-volley zones, walls you can play off. The ball bounces off the back wall, I scramble to return it, and suddenly I'm in this rhythm. Hustling. Sliding. Actually playing.

Maya's watching now. Not laughing.

"Not bad," Chloe says, almost smiling. Almost.

After tryouts, Maya finds me by my bike. "Hey, Spinach Mouth."

I groan. "Please don't."

"You made the team," she says. "Chloe put your name on the roster."

"Wait, really?"

"Really." She grins. "Also, I meant to tell you earlier—I think the spinach was kind of cute."

My brain short-circuits. "What?"

"Like, you were so nervous about it, and your face got all red..." She shrugs. "It was endearing."

I'm still processing when she adds, "Want to walk to practice together tomorrow?"

"Yeah," I manage. "Yeah, absolutely."

As I bike home, I can't stop smiling. Sometimes the most embarrassing moments lead to the best things. And maybe—just maybe—having spinach stuck in your teeth isn't the worst thing that could happen.

It could be worse. You could be Chloe, who's been sphinx-staring everyone for three years and still hasn't figured out how to just talk to people.

Some of us learn faster than others.