Green in the Teeth

Maya's life ended in slow motion on a Tuesday.

She was sitting across from Liam—the Liam with the jawline and the varsity jacket—and everything was perfect until she smiled. Really smiled, laugh-at-his-joke-even-though-it-wasn't-funny smiled.

"You've got something..." He winced. "Right there."

She'd been eating the spinach artichoke dip. Of course she had. Because the universe had a personal vendetta against her social life.

Maya's **iphone** buzzed in her pocket—probably another notification from the school's anonymous gossip account. Someone was running it, playing **spy**, collecting secrets like Pokémon cards. Everyone had theories about who it was. Some creep in the back of calc class. Some theater kid with too much free time.

Nobody suspected Maya.

She excused herself, practically sprinted to the bathroom, and spent three minutes scrubbing her teeth with her index finger. When she came back, Liam was gone. Just his half-finished soda and the check.

The humiliation was absolute. Maya texted her best friend: "i am deceased. cancel my subscription."

That night, she opened the account—the one everyone at school followed like scripture. The one where she'd been posting anonymous truths for months, thinking she was some kind of justice warrior. Looking at it now, she felt gross. She wasn't helping anyone. She was just **bearing** witness to other people's pain and calling it content.

Her little brother's stuffed **bear** sat on her desk, its button eye loose. She'd had it since she was six, through her parents' divorce, through middle school braces, through every embarrassing moment she'd sworn would kill her. The bear had seen it all. The bear didn't judge.

Maya deleted the account. Every post. Every follower. Gone.

The next day, Liam found her at her locker. "Hey, about yesterday..."

"Yeah, I know. Spinach. I'm literally never eating again."

"Actually," he said, "I was gonna say—I thought it was kind of cool that you didn't try to play it off. Most people would've pretended nothing happened."

He smiled. She checked her reflection. No **spinach** in sight.

"Want to get food?" he asked. "Somewhere with, like, zero green stuff?"

Maya grinned. She still had her phone, but this time she left it in her pocket.