Palm Lines and Second Chances

Maya's palms were sweating. Literally sweating. Like, she could practically fill a water bottle with the nervous juice collecting in her hands.

"Dude, you good?" Jordan asked, cracking open a soda. His basement was the official hangout spot—complete with a lumpy couch, a TV that required three specific smacks to work, and a tangled cable situation behind the entertainment center that looked like a snake explosion.

"Yeah, totally good," Maya lied, wiping her hands on her jeans. "Why wouldn't I be good?"

"Because you've been staring at that same spinach dip for twenty minutes like it holds the secrets of the universe." Jordan grinned. "Also, you've got a little..." He gestured at his own teeth.

Maya's heart stopped. "No way."

"Way, way."

She bolted to the bathroom, freaking out. OF COURSE. Of course the first time she hung out with Jordan—the guy she'd been lowkey crushing on since September—she'd walk around with green stuff in her teeth. This was exactly the kind of thing that happened to people who weren't chill. Who weren't naturally effortless.

When she came back, Jordan was sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by half the friend group. "Yo, Maya! Get over here. Brooke's doing palm readings now."

"Palm readings? Seriously?" Maya sat down anyway, keeping her distance.

"It's real," Brooke insisted, grabbing Maya's hand. "Okay, let's see..." She traced the lines on Maya's palm with a dramatic flourish. "You're going to have a moment tonight. Like, an awkward moment that you'll think is the end of the world, but it'll actually be fine and kind of funny later."

Everyone cracked up. "Vague much?" Maya rolled her eyes, but she was secretly relieved they didn't mention the spinach.

Jordan moved closer, his knee brushing hers. "Hey, for what it's worth? Brooke's been wrong like, ninety percent of the time. She predicted I'd fail algebra, and I'm sitting pretty with a C-minus."

"Wow, congratulations on mediocrity," Maya shot back, and Jordan laughed so hard he almost knocked over the spinach dip.

They ended up talking for hours while the rest of the group played video games—about music, about how much they both hated their chemistry teacher, about how Jordan had accidentally set his kitchen on fire making toast last week. Maya's palms stopped sweating. The spinach incident faded into the background.

Later, when Maya's mom called to say she'd be late picking her up, Jordan walked her to the end of the driveway.

"Hey," he said, kind of quiet. "This was cool. We should hang out more. Like, just us two?"

Maya's heart did something weird in her chest. "Yeah. I'd like that."

"Cool." Jordan grinned, then nudged her shoulder. "Also, just so you know? I had spinach in my teeth too, like, all of seventh grade. Nobody cared then, either."

Maya laughed so hard she had to wipe her eyes. Some things weren't as big a deal as they felt in the moment. And some things—like Jordan's smile, even with the streetlamp making everything weird and yellow—were exactly as big a deal as she'd hoped.