Orange Hoodie Courage

Maya's bright orange hoodie felt like a beacon calling attention to everything wrong with her existence. It was three sizes too big—her brother's hand-me-down from his freshman year—and on this particular Tuesday, it was the physical manifestation of her social anxiety.

"You're actually wearing that?" Jordan raised an eyebrow as she slid into the cafeteria table. "Alex is literally two tables away."

Maya's stomach did that thing it did whenever Alex was nearby. Like, full somersaults. She'd been crushing on him since cross-country tryouts in September, watching him run like he was escaping something bigger than finish lines.

"Shut up," Maya muttered, stabbing at her salad. She'd packed her own lunch because the cafeteria pizza had been giving her weird vibes lately. So. Much. Spinach. The healthy green stuff that refused to be chewed quietly.

That's when it happened.

Alex stood up. Started walking toward their table. Maya's brain short-circuited. She swallowed the spinach. Wrong move.

Something felt wrong. Wrong wrong wrong.

She shot up from her seat. "I gotta go."

"Maya, he's literally—"

She was already running. Not cute running. Full-on, I'm-being-chased-by-wolves running through the hallway, orange billowing behind her like some tragic superhero cape.

She burst into the girls' bathroom and flipped up her hoodie.

There it was. A single, determined piece of spinach, wedged between her front teeth like a tiny green flag of embarrassment.

"You've got to be kidding me."

But then—a bathroom stall opened. A girl Maya barely knew stood there, staring. Then she smiled.

"Happened to me last week during my presentation. Third period. Whole class saw it."

Maya blinked.

"You survived?"

"Barely." The girl fished something from her pocket. "Floss. You're welcome."

Maya ran back to the cafeteria. Not away from something anymore, but toward it.

Alex was still there. Standing by her empty seat.

"Hey," he said. "I was gonna ask..."

She smiled, showing all her spinach-free teeth.

"Yeah?"

"Wanna go for a run sometime?"