Green Teeth and Sweaty Palms

Maya's bathroom mirror showed a casualty. She'd attempted the viral TikTok hair tutorial—curls cascading like a waterfall—and ended up looking like she'd stuck her finger in an electrical socket.

"You look fine," her little brother called from the hallway. "Just don't smile too big."

Maya froze. "Why?"

"You've got spinach in your teeth."

Twenty minutes and floss picks later, Maya stood outside Tyler's house. Her palms were sweating through her jean pockets—gross, but normal. This was it: her first party with the popular crowd since moving across the country. She'd spent weeks curating the perfect playlist, memorizing TikTok dances she'd never perform in public, and praying nobody noticed she still shopped at Walmart.

The door flew open before she could knock.

"Maya!" Tyler grinned, then froze. Behind him, Barnaby—his golden retriever—bounded forward like a furry missile.

Maya scrambled backward. "I'm allergic."

"Right, right, sorry—BARNABY, SIT." Tyler dragged the dog back by his collar. "My bad. Come in, come in."

The basement was already pulsing with bass. Maya spotted Sienna immediately—hair gelled into perfect spikes at the crown, surrounded by a cluster of girls who laughed at everything she said. This was it. The inner circle.

Then Sienna's cat, a calico named Pickles, hopped onto the couch and began grooming Maya's arm with her sandpaper tongue.

"Pickles likes you," Sienna said. "That's rare. She usually hisses at new people."

"Good to know," Maya managed, suppressing a sneeze. Between the dog dander on her jeans and the cat now kneading her sweater like dough, her nose was starting to tingle.

Two hours later, Maya sat on the back porch with Sienna, both of them slightly tipsy on warm soda, watching Tyler attempt palm readings on anyone who'd sit still. He'd just told Olivia that her life line was "extremely decisive" when Sienna nudged Maya.

"Your hair," she said. "Did you mean to do it like that?"

Maya's stomach dropped. "Yeah. It's, uh, this new style. Messy beach waves."

Sienna nodded slowly. "Cool. I've been trying to get mine to do that for months. Mine always looks too perfect. Like I tried too hard."

Maya blinked. "You think your hair looks too perfect?"

"All the time." Sienna sipped her soda. "Nobody tells you the secret about being popular, right? It's just that we're all pretending to know what we're doing."

From the basement, someone shrieked with laughter. Tyler had apparently predicted that Jake would "marry someone whose name starts with Q."

"Hey," Sienna said suddenly. "You want to come to the mall tomorrow? Me and the girls usually go on Saturdays."

Maya's palms had stopped sweating hours ago. "Yeah. I'd love that."