Seventh-Inning Spinach

The orange soda stain on my white jersey was practically glowing. Like, actually glowing under the stadium lights.

"You're gonna miss it," Maya said from the seat next to me, her voice cutting through my spiral.

Miss what? The baseball game? No. The fact that this was supposed to be our first real date, and instead of looking cute and chill, I was currently sporting a bright orange reminder that I was not, in fact, cute or chill.

I'd dumped an entire bottle of orange Fanta on myself five minutes ago. Right after I'd done the thing where you check your reflection in your phone and realize you had spinach stuck in your teeth from the nachos.

Classic me.

The crowd roared. Someone had hit a home run. Maya was on her feet, cheering, her hair catching the light like she was in a music video or something. Meanwhile, I was calculating exit strategies. Bathroom escape? Fake emergency? Spontaneous combustion?

"Chase," she said, sitting back down and looking at me with those eyes that made my stomach do weird things. "You okay? You look like you're about to throw up."

"I'm fine," I squeaked. "Just need some water."

But Maya wasn't buying it. She reached over and her fingers brushed my arm. Actual physical contact. My brain short-circuited.

"You know what's funny?" she said.

"My entire existence?"

"Well, yeah," she laughed, and it was this real laugh, not the fake one she used with teachers. "But I was gonna say — remember last year at Trevor's party? You threw up in the pool after chugging too much punch and then tried to play it off like you were just doing cannonballs super hard?"

I groaned. "We agreed never to speak of that."

"My point is," she said, leaning closer, "you've always been kind of a disaster. But like, in a way that's actually... really nice?"

The baseball game faded into the background. The crowd, the lights, everything.

"Nice?" I managed. "I just dumped soda all over myself. That's not nice. That's tragic."

"It's kinda endearing, though?" She smiled. "Like, you're not trying to be perfect. You're just... you. Spinach teeth and orange stains and all."

For the first time all night, I actually breathed.

"So this isn't ruined?"

"Nah." Maya grabbed my hand, interlacing our fingers. "It's perfect. Besides, the orange looks kinda fire on you."

The scoreboard didn't matter. The stain didn't matter. Somehow, sitting there in my orange-splattered disaster state, I felt like I'd finally won something bigger than any baseball game could ever offer.

Maybe being a disaster wasn't the worst thing in the world. Not if Maya thought it was fire.