Green in the Deep End

My braces were basically metal magnets for humiliation. So naturally, when Jake Townsend invited me to his pool party—the social event of the sophomore year—I spent three days analyzing every possible disaster scenario. None of them involved spinach.

I'd been crushing on Jake since he sat next to me in bio and made that joke about mitochondria being the powerhouse of his heart. So when his mom handed me a spinach artichoke dip at the party, I didn't have the guts to say no thanks, I'm trying to not embarrass myself today.

The problem wasn't eating it. The problem was that five minutes later, Jake swam over to where I was pretending to be comfortable in the shallow end, and said, "Hey Maya, wanna play categories?"

I panicked. Did I have spinach in my braces? Was it visible? I smiled anyway—because I was an idiot—and said, "Sure!"

We played for twenty minutes. I was winning. I was funny. He was laughing. It was going PERFECTLY. Until his little sister Emma tapped Jake's shoulder and said, "Why does Maya have green stuff in her teeth?"

The temperature of the entire pool must have dropped ten degrees.

I froze. Jake looked. Then he did the unthinkable—he didn't make it weird. He just said, "Oh yeah, that's from the dip. It's actually pretty good," and splashed water at his sister.

But the damage was done. I bolted from the pool, grabbed my towel, and speed-walked to the patio table where Emma sat with something in a plastic bag.

"You alright?" she asked.

"Fine," I said. "Just. You know."

"He's not gonna care," she said. "Once, he threw up nachos all over himself at the county fair because he went on the Tilt-A-Whirl immediately after eating. He survived."

I let out a breath. "Really?"

"Really." She held up the plastic bag. Inside was a goldfish in a bag of water. "Wanna name him? I won him at the carnival."

"Spinach," I said without thinking.

Emma burst out laughing. "That's the worst name ever. I love it."

Jake walked over, dripping wet, still in his swim trunks. "Everything good?"

Emma held up the fish. "Maya named him Spinach."

Jake smiled. And then, miracle of miracles, he said, "That's actually kinda perfect. Spinach the goldfish. We should keep him."

I laughed. I actually laughed. And later, when Jake sat next to me on the patio bench and we talked about everything from bio class to his embarrassing nacho story, I realized something: nobody cared about the spinach in my teeth except me.

Well, except Emma. She still brings it up.

Spinach the goldfish is still alive. Jake's still funny. And I'm still working on not overthinking everything.

But hey, at least I can swim in the deep end now.