Green Between the Teeth

The baseball incident had been humiliating enough—I'd taken a line drive to the cheek during gym class when Tyler, the varsity pitcher who'd somehow ended up in our regular PE period, decided to show off his fastball. Now? Now I was dealing with round two.

Jordan's pool party glittered with everything I wasn't. Sophomore year social hierarchy in full display—clustering groups, curated playlists, the works. I'd spent twenty minutes psyching myself up to actually talk to them, to Jordan, who'd been in my biology lab group since September and somehow still didn't know I existed outside Punnett squares.

"Hey!" Jordan materialized behind me, holding out a red Solo cup. "You made it!"

"Yeah, um, thanks for inviting me." My voice squeaked. Great start.

"No problem!" They smiled, and something about that smile made my stomach do actual gymnastics. "Try the dip, it's actually legit. My mom's recipe or whatever."

I took a chip, scooped up what looked like some kind of spinach artichoke situation, and shoved it in my mouth. Delicious. Also: catastrophic error.

Because I didn't discover until twenty minutes later, after successfully navigating like three whole conversations and even making Jordan laugh at my terrible joke about dissection, that an entire leaf of spinach had been camping between my front teeth the entire time.

The entire time.

I caught my reflection in the sliding glass door and nearly died right there by the pool's edge. Every conversation, every smile, every moment of thinking I was finally nailing this social thing—I'd been broadcasting to everyone that I was the person with food in their teeth.

"You good?" Jordan appeared beside me, looking concerned. "You've been staring at your reflection for like, five minutes."

"No," I said, then started laughing because what else could I do? "Actually, this is so embarrassing, but I think I've had spinach in my teeth since I got here."

Jordan blinked, then burst out laughing. "Oh my god, why didn't anyone say anything?"

"That's what I'm asking!"

"Here." Jordan reached out, wiped it away with their thumb. "Fixed. Crisis averted."

My face burned. "Thanks. Also, I'm dying."

"You're good." They grinned. "Actually, it's kind of refreshing. Everyone here is trying so hard to be perfect. You're just... out here living your truth with spinach in your teeth. It's honestly iconic."