Green Between Your Teeth

Maya's palms were sweating so bad she could practically water plants with them. She wiped them on her jeans for the third time, staring across the cafeteria at Leo—the sphinx himself, unreadable and impossible to figure out. He'd transferred to Northwood three weeks ago and already had his own table, his own orbit, his own everything.

"You're staring again," said Jazz, sliding onto the bench beside her. "Just go talk to him already."

"Hard pass," Maya muttered, stabbing at her tray. "I'd rather explode from awkwardness."

Jazz rolled her eyes. "That's such bull and you know it. You're funny, you're smart, you've got that whole dark academia vibe going on. Leo would dig it."

Maya snorted. "Right. Because my ability to quote Edgar Allan Poe and my chronic inability to make normal conversation is exactly what sixteen-year-old guys are looking for."

She stood up to throw away her trash, her heart doing that stupid flutter thing it always did when Leo was within a fifty-foot radius. She was three steps from his table when Jaxon, Leo's friend, called out: "Hey Maya, Leo was just saying he wants to ask you something!"

Maya froze. Every pair of eyes at that table locked onto her. Including Leo's.

Her brain short-circuited. She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again."I—what?"

Leo smirked. "He's lying. I didn't say that."

"That's bull," someone else muttered, and the whole table laughed.

Maya's face burned. She turned to flee, but before she could move, Jazz materialized beside her, whispering: "You have spinach in your teeth. Like, a LOT of spinach."

The universe had officially ended her social life before it had even begun.

But instead of dying on the spot, Maya did something new. She laughed. Not a tiny nervous laugh, but a real one. "Okay, that's actually hilarious," she said, still chuckling. "Of course I do. Of course this is my life."

Leo's smirk softened into something else. Something that looked like interest. "You're good, Maya," he said. "Most people would've cried."

She shrugged, wiping her palm on her jeans one last time. "I learned a long time ago that if you can't beat the embarrassment, you might as well join it."

And that was the thing about growing up—it wasn't about avoiding the spinach in your teeth. It was about realizing that everyone had some, and the people worth knowing were the ones who'd laugh with you about it.

Leo stood up. "So, about that question I didn't ask..."