Green Teeth and Golden Eyes

The cafeteria hummed with that specific lunch-period energy — chaotic, loud, smelling like tater tots and teen spirit. I sat across from Marcus, picking at my tray, trying desperately to be invisible. This was my third week at Northwood High, and I'd already established myself as the quiet transfer kid who sat alone.

Then Marcus slid into the seat opposite me. Marcus Chen, varsity jacket, perfect hair, the kind of guy who moved through hallways like gravity bent around him.

"You trying to photosynthesize or what?" He nodded at my untouched food.

I laughed, surprised. "What?"

"The **spinach**." He grinned. "It's not gonna change your life, bro. It's just spinach."

I looked down. Sure enough, a vivid green wedge was stuck between my front teeth. I'd been walking around all morning with spinach in my teeth like a total clown. My face burned hotter than the school's pizza.

I covered my mouth with my hand. "Oh my god. How long?"

"Since first period English." Marcus didn't even try to suppress his laugh. "But honestly? It made you memorable. Which is more than I can say for half the people here."

Something shifted. The weird tension in my chest loosened.

"I'm Jesse, by the way. Green-toothed transfer student."

"Marcus." He bumped his fist against mine. "You play **baseball**?"

"Used to. Back at my old school."

"Tryouts are next week. We could use an outfielder." He stood up, grabbing his tray. "Think about it. And Jesse?"

"Yeah?"

"Sit with us tomorrow. The spinach look isn't required, but it's definitely a conversation starter."

That night, I FaceTimed my little sister in our old bedroom. Her **cat** — a judgmental tabby named Pickles who tolerated exactly no one — jumped onto her lap and proceeded to knock her phone off the bed. We both cracked up, and for the first time since the move, California didn't feel so far away from everything I knew.

"You're like a mama **bear** about your comfort zone," she'd told me once. "You just roar at anything new and retreat into your cave."

She wasn't wrong.

But the next day, I sat at Marcus's table. Spinach-free. And when tryouts rolled around, I showed up with my old glove, the one my dad had given me when I made All-Stars at twelve, back when baseball was everything and the future felt like something that happened to other people.

I didn't make the team — not that year, anyway. But I made Marcus. I made a spot at that loud, chaotic lunch table. I made something new.

And sometimes, on the absolute worst days, I still think about that spinach wedged in my teeth, how I wanted to disappear, how instead it became the thing that finally let me show up.

Funny how the embarrassing stuff — the stuff you think will ruin you — ends up being exactly what you needed to be seen.