Green in the Teeth

The spinach incident happened right before first period, when Maya finally worked up the courage to talk to him. Jake Morrison, who'd moved here from California in October and already had more friends than she'd made in three years at Northwood High. She'd spent twenty minutes that morning picking out an outfit that said effortless but not trying too hard, only to discover later — via bathroom mirror horror — that a massive piece of spinach had been camped out in her braces since breakfast.

No wonder he'd looked at her like that during English. Not mysterious. Not intrigued. Just weird.

'I'm such a bear about it now,' her best friend Chloe said later, when they were sitting on the pool deck during third period swim class. 'Like, I literally can't even order spinach salad anymore without trauma.'

Maya cracked a smile. Chloe had witnessed the aftermath — Maya sprinting to the bathroom, Chloe following with sympathetic noises and emergency dental floss.

'Thanks for not letting me die alone,' Maya said.

'Always.' Chloe adjusted her goggles. 'So, padel after school? The new courts are actually decent.'

Swimming had always been Maya's thing. The water didn't care about spinach or social standing or whether you said the wrong thing sometimes. But lately she'd been trying to say yes to everything, trying to become someone who didn't overthink every interaction until it splintered into a thousand what-ifs.

'I'll go,' Maya said, and felt something shift in her chest. Light. Almost like floating.

The padel courts were packed after school — somehow word had spread that the equipment was brand new and no one really knew what they were doing, which leveled the playing field. Jake was there, playing on the adjacent court with some juniors. Maya watched him laugh at something, easy and unselfconscious, and felt the old instinct kick in: shrink. disappear. don't be weird.

But then she caught Chloe's eye, and Chloe gave her this tiny nod, like: you got this.

So Maya didn't shrink. She grabbed a racket, walked onto the court, and served the ball straight into the fence.

'Epic,' Chloe said, grinning. 'Ten out of ten.'

Jake turned at the sound. Their eyes met for just a second. He didn't look at her like she was weird. He just smiled, quick and genuine, before turning back to his game.

Progress, Maya thought, retrieving the ball. The spinach would pass. Everything would pass. Eventually, she'd stop being someone who worried about green stuff in her teeth and start being someone who could just play.

She served again. This one landed inside the court.

'Okay,' she said. 'Okay.'