Orange Hair, Green Smile

Maya stared at her reflection, the fluorescent bathroom lights catching the copper strands she'd dyed the night before. Orange. Bright, impossible-to-miss orange. Her mom had said she looked like a traffic cone, but Maya called it self-expression. At sixteen, she figured it was time to stop being the quiet girl who blended into lockers.

Third period lunch changed everything.

She'd been sitting with Lucas, who she'd been lowkey flirting with for weeks, when he finally asked what she'd been dying to hear: "Want to hang this weekend?"

Her brain short-circuited. "Yeah! Totally!" she'd said way too loudly, mouth full of the spinach salad she'd convinced herself was sophisticated adult food.

Lucas's expression shifted from smiling to something else. He pointed at his own teeth.

Maya's stomach dropped. She excused herself and speed-walked to the bathroom, where she discovered what Lucas had already seen: a forest of green spinach wedged between her front teeth like nature's cruel joke.

She scrubbed her teeth until her gums hurt, then leaned against the sink, fighting the urge to cry. This was it. This was why she never took risks. Why she never stood out. Orange hair, spinach teeth—she was a walking disaster.

"Maya?"

She looked up. Lucas stood in the doorway, looking uncertain.

"I came to check on you," he said. "Also, my sister has the same orange hair. She said it took her, like, three tries to get it right first time she dyed it."

Maya blinked. "You think it looks bad?"

"No," Lucas said, grinning. "I think it looks brave. Also, you still have a little—" he gestured to his own teeth—"but honestly? I've had spinach in my teeth like, five times this week alone. My friends call me Popeye."

Maya laughed, really laughed, for what felt like the first time in months.

"So," Lucas said, leaning against the doorframe, "about this weekend... there's this place that does really bad spinach artichoke dip. We could go there and both look ridiculous."

"Deal," Maya said, catching his eye in the mirror. "But I'm bringing floss."