Green Between the Teeth

Marcus stood at the edge of the pool, chlorine stinging his nose. Three days until the swim team tryouts that would make or break his entire freshman year reputation. The problem? He couldn't actually swim.

"Yo Marcus, you coming in or what?" Tyler called from the deep end, surrounded by the popular crew who somehow made everything look effortless. Tyler, who'd been terrorizing Marcus since middle school, whose "accidental" shoulder checks in the hallway had become a daily ritual. A total bull, as Maya would say.

Marcus's phone buzzed. Lunch with Maya—the one person who didn't care that he was basically faking it until he maybe, hopefully, could make it. He grabbed his tray, heart doing that stupid flutter thing it always did around her lately.

She was already there, picking at her food. "Hey. You look like you haven't slept. Again."

"Tryouts. Three days." Marcus dropped into the seat across from her. "I'm dead. I'm actually dead. This is my ghost speaking."

Maya laughed, then froze. Her eyes went wide.

"What?"

"Marcus, don't smile."

"What? Why—"

"You have—" She winced. "There's spinach. Like, a significant amount. All over your front teeth."

Heat rushed up his neck. Of course. Of *course* he'd spent twenty minutes psyching himself up to talk to her, practicing cool lines in the mirror, and now he looked like he'd been eating a salad face-first.

But Maya wasn't laughing. She was digging through her bag, pulling out a mirror. "Dude, it's fine. Here."

Their fingers brushed as she passed it over. Something in her expression—gentle, maybe? Like she actually saw him, the real him, not whatever version he was trying to perform for everyone else.

"Thanks," he mumbled, wiping at his teeth. "This is so cringe."

"Marcus?" She leaned in. "Tyler tried out for swim team last year. Didn't make it."

Wait. What?

"He's been pushing your buttons about tryouts because he's projecting."

The water hadn't even touched his skin, but suddenly Marcus could breathe. "He failed?"

"Flipped off the diving board. Fell in. Couldn't even complete one lap." Maya grinned. "But hey, if you want, we could go to the Y tonight? I can teach you some basics. My little sister's on a team, I've picked up stuff."

Marcus looked at her—really looked at her. The girl who'd sat next to him in homeroom for months, who he'd been too busy trying to impress to actually know.

"Yeah," he said, and something unclenched in his chest. "Yeah, I'd like that."

The spinach was gone. The bull had been revealed as, well, just another insecure kid. And for the first time, Marcus thought maybe he didn't have to fake it—not in the pool, not anywhere.

He was still going to fail those tryouts. But suddenly, that didn't feel like the end of the world anymore.