Green Stuff and Truth

My mom dumped the spinach on my plate like it was a punishment. "It's good for you," she said, echoing the same lie parents had told teenagers since the dawn of time. I pushed it around with my fork, already late for cross-country practice. The running team was everything this year—my escape, my people, the one place I didn't feel like a fraud.

"Take your vitamin," she added, sliding the orange bottle toward me. I swallowed it dry, choking down the irony that I was popping supplements to be healthy while stressing myself sick about tryouts next week.

At school, Jordan was already wearing that stupid hat—a black beanie pulled low over their eyes, even though it was barely fifty degrees outside. That was Jordan's vibe though. Mysterious. Effortless. The kind of person who didn't overthink everything like I did.

"You coming to the game tonight?" Jordan asked, spinning a pencil between their fingers.

"Can't. Coach says if we want to letter, we need to prove we're serious about the sport."

Jordan rolled their eyes. "You know what's funny? You're so worried about being a 'real athlete' that you forgot running is supposed to be fun."

The words hit harder than they should have. Because they were right. I'd gotten so caught up in proving myself—proving I belonged, proving I wasn't the awkward kid who couldn't even do a pull-up freshman year—that I'd lost the actual joy of it. The feeling of wind in my lungs, the rhythm of my feet against pavement, the moments when my brain finally went quiet.

That afternoon, I didn't go to practice. Instead, I ran to the creek behind the old elementary school, where no one could see me. No coach timing my splits, no teammates to impress, no expectations bearing down on my shoulders like a physical weight. Just me and the path and the unexpected discovery that sometimes the fastest way forward is to stop running away from who you actually are.

I came home sweaty and starving. My mom had made a salad—spinach and everything. I actually ate it without complaining.

"How was practice?" she asked.

I thought about lying. But then I remembered Jordan's hat, how they wore it exactly how they wanted, consequences be damned. So I told the truth.

"I didn't go. But I think I needed today more than practice."

She nodded like she understood. "Sometimes that's how it goes."

And maybe it was the fresh air or the exhaustion or just the fact that I'd finally stopped trying to be someone I wasn't, but for the first time in months, I actually believed everything might turn out okay.