Green Lightning

Maya had been spying on Liam from across the cafeteria for weeks—not like a creepy stalker spy, just the casual I-happen-to-be-looking-in-your-direction kind of spy. She had the routine down: fake laugh at something Chloe said, pretend to check her phone, catch his eye for exactly 0.7 seconds, look away dramatically.

Today was different. Her mom said the spinach in her special salad would give her glowing skin, whatever that meant. Her friends had been pushing her to just talk to him already. "You're literally being insane," Chloe had said that morning. "Just say hi."

When Maya saw Liam heading toward the trash cans, she knew this was it. She stood up too fast—her chair made this embarrassingly loud screech. Everyone turned. Heat rushed to her face. She could feel the waterworks threatening to start, the stinging behind her eyes that meant mortification was imminent.

Then she saw it in her compact mirror—a giant piece of spinach wedged between her front teeth like some kind of terrible green flag announcing her insecurity to the world.

Maya bolted. Like, actually ran. All the way to the girls' bathroom by the science wing, where she promptly locked herself in a stall. Thunder rumbled outside.

Her phone buzzed. Chloe: "WHAT JUST HAPPENED???"

Maya rinsed her mouth with water, cleaned every speck of spinach from her teeth, and looked at herself in the mirror. So what if she'd embarrassed herself? It wasn't like anyone would remember by next week. Probably.

The bathroom door swung open and Chloe rushed in, followed by—no. No way.

Liam.

"Maya?" He held out her phone. "You forgot this."

"Thanks," Maya managed, voice cracking. "And, um, sorry about running. I had something in my teeth."

Liam smiled, and Maya felt it—the lightning. Not the storm kind. The other kind. The electricity people wrote songs about and poets described with metaphors that suddenly made perfect sense.

"I know," he said. "I was going to tell you, but you ran." He stepped closer. "It was kind of cute, though."

"Cute?" Maya asked. "It was humiliating."

"Nah." Liam shrugged. "So, Friday? Jake's having a party. Want to go together?"

Maya stood there, spinach-free, heart racing. "Yes. Like, definitely yes."

She had almost ruined everything with her spying from afar, her constant overthinking, her insecurity. But sometimes—just sometimes—the universe gave you a second chance. And sometimes, that second chance came with a really cute boy who didn't care about a little spinach in your teeth.