Green Between the Teeth

Maya stood at the edge of Jake's backyard pool, clutching her iPhone like a lifeline. The screen reflected her anxiety—three unread texts from best friends demanding updates, zero from Jake. She'd spent forty minutes on her hair that morning, attempting those perfectly imperfect beach waves that looked effortless but weren't.

"Hey! You made it!" Jake appeared, shirtless, dripping chlorinated water. Maya's stomach did that embarrassing flutter thing.

"Yeah, just...charging my social battery," she lied, gesturing vaguely with her phone.

He laughed. "There's spinach dip inside. Chloe's dad made way too much."

Spinach dip. The harbinger of social doom. Maya remembered seventh grade, the braces era, the school photo with green in her teeth that lived in infamy on Instagram for three weeks.

The pool buzzed with energy. Someone cannonballed. Water sprayed. Maya wiped droplets from her orange bikini—she'd bought it thinking the color would make her look confident, not like she was trying too hard.

She texted her friends: «This is a disaster. I'm going home.»

Before she could hit send, someone splashed her—a massive wave that soaked her iPhone and everything else.

"Oh my god, I am SO sorry!" It was a girl with bright orange hair, partially dyed, partially chlorine-green. "I'm Riley. Jake's cousin."

Maya stared at her waterlogged phone, then at Riley's disaster hair. "It's...actually kind of funny."

"You know what's worse?" Riley lowered her voice. "I've had spinach in my teeth for like twenty minutes and no one will tell me."

Maya actually laughed. A real one.

"Also," Riley continued, "your phone's probably fine. I dropped mine in a lake last summer. It lived. You know what didn't survive? My dignity when I tried to do a TikTok dance in front of my crush." She demonstrated the most awkward attempt at a body roll Maya had ever witnessed.

They were both laughing now, the kind of laughing that makes your abs hurt and you don't care who's watching.

"Want spinach dip?" Riley asked. "We can be the girls with green teeth together."

Jake swam over. "What's so funny?"

Maya looked at her soggy phone, her imperfect hair, the orange-clad stranger who'd somehow made everything less terrifying.

"Nothing," she said, and actually meant it. "Just everything."