Greens and Golden Skin

Maya hated the way spinach got stuck in her braces. It was like the universe was conspiring to make everything about her life — including her smile — as awkward as humanly possible.

"You're staring at the produce again," Marcus said, leaning against the counter at his family's bodega. His golden-brown skin caught the afternoon light streaming through the dusty windows, and Maya's stomach did that stupid flip thing it always did around him.

"I'm not staring. I'm contemplating.

"About what? The existential crisis of being sixteen while working at your parents' grocery store?"

Maya rolled her eyes, but she was smiling now. "Actually, I was thinking about how my abuela thinks papaya cures everything. Heartbreak? Papaya. Acne? Papaya. Existential dread? Definitely papaya."

Marcus laughed, and the sound made something in her chest feel tight and desperate. "Classic abuela logic. My mom swears by sage cleanses. Like, burning sage and waving it around my room when I can't sleep. Because nothing says 'restful night' like smelling like a spiritual ritual."

"Least your mom doesn't make you drink green smoothies that taste like literal lawn clippings."

"Wait, you actually drink that stuff?"

"Every morning. Spinach, kale, something green that I'm pretty sure is just weeds from the backyard..."

"Show me the evidence, I don't believe you."

Maya pulled out her phone, scrolled to the photo of her looking absolutely miserable with a massive green mustache from her morning smoothie. Marcus's laugh was louder this time, and he reached out to tilt her phone screen toward himself, his fingers brushing hers. The contact sent electricity racing up her arm, and suddenly she couldn't breathe.

"Okay, okay, you win," he said, still grinning. "But you gotta come by the bodega more. We got this cat — well, she's kinda the store cat, nobody actually owns her — and she keeps knocking over the papaya display. It's chaos, honestly. You'd love it."

"A cat that knocks over papayas?" Maya raised an eyebrow. "That's oddly specific."

"What can I say? She has expensive taste. Or maybe she just really hates fruit."

"I'll come by," Maya heard herself say, and then realized what she'd actually agreed to. "I mean — if you want. To show me the cat. And the papaya chaos."

Marcus's grin widened, and something in his expression made Maya's heart hammer against her ribs like it was trying to escape. "Yeah. I want that."

Later, when Maya got home and caught her reflection in the bathroom mirror — a piece of spinach stuck right in her front brackets — she just laughed. Some things were always going to be awkward. But somehow, that didn't seem so terrible anymore.