Green in the Teeth

The cafeteria at Northwood High smelled like desperation and slightly overcooked pizza. I slid my tray onto the table, trying to be invisible, which is basically impossible when you're a freshman and your hair is doing that weird frizzy thing it does when it's humid.

"You've got something in your teeth," Jordan said, nodding at me.

I froze. Jordan. The Jordan who'd sat behind me in bio since September and whose laugh sounded like sunshine feels. I reached for my phone to check the reflection, and there it was—a bright green piece of **spinach** wedged between my front teeth, visible from space, probably.

"How long?" I whispered, horrified.

"Since lunch started," they said, then cracked a smile. "It's kinda cute though. Like, really committed to the aesthetic."

I wanted to dissolve into the floor. Instead, I had to **bear** through another three hours of school, including my English presentation on ancient Egypt that I'd been stressing about for weeks. Mr. Harrison had assigned us topics, and naturally I'd drawn the short straw: the Great **Pyramid** of Giza and the **Sphinx**.

"Public speaking builds character," my mom had said that morning, as if character was something I needed more of when I could barely get through lunch without humiliating myself.

But something shifted when I stood at the front of the classroom. Maybe it was Jordan's encouraging nod from the third row. Maybe it was the realization that I'd already hit rock bottom with the spinach incident. Maybe it was just that the Sphinx's riddle—that thing about what walks on four legs, then two, then three—was actually kind of profound when you thought about it.

"We spend our whole lives trying to figure out who we're becoming," I found myself saying, my voice steady for the first time all day. "Like the Sphinx, we're all riddles to ourselves. And like the Pyramid, we're built layer by layer, experience by experience."

When I finished, Jordan was the first to clap. Later, by the lockers, they handed me a mint.

"For the record," Jordan said, "I meant it about the spinach. It was bold. Iconic behavior, really."

I laughed, actual laughter that didn't feel forced. Maybe high school wasn't about being perfect. Maybe it was about surviving the spinach moments and finding people who thought your disasters were kind of iconic.