Spinach in Your Teeth

The party at Tyler's house was supposed to be Maya's night. Finally. After two years of being the quiet girl who sat three rows back in AP Bio, tonight she was going to be someone else. Someone who didn't overthink everything. Someone who laughed too loud and kissed boys she barely knew and didn't care if her hair was frizzy at the ends.

The kitchen counter was lined with Solo cups and a platter of spinach wraps that someone's mom had probably arranged too carefully. Maya grabbed one, her stomach doing that thing it always did when she was nervous—like a trapped animal throwing itself against cage ribs. She'd spent forty-five minutes on her makeup. Eyeliner sharp enough to cut. Lip gloss she'd reapplied three times in the rearview mirror.

"You gonna eat that or just stare at it?"

Lucas. The boy who'd transferred in November and already had half the junior class obsessed with him. He had this lazy smile that made him look like he knew something you didn't. Like he was in on a joke you hadn't heard yet.

Maya swallowed hard. "I was thinking about it."

"Thinking's overrated." He leaned closer. "You've got—" He gestured at his own teeth, and Maya's heart dropped through the floor.

She'd spoken to exactly three people all night. If she walked around with spinach in her teeth, that was it. Her reputation would be over before it even started. She bolted for the bathroom, pushing through someone's spilled drink, her face burning so hot she felt like she'd melt right through the floorboards.

The bathroom line was twelve people deep. Maya leaned against the hallway wall, ready to cry, ready to go home, ready to accept that she was never going to be the kind of person who belonged at parties like this.

"Hey."

It was Lucas again. He'd followed her.

"I know," she said bitterly. "I have spinach in my teeth. I get it."

"What? No." He frowned. "I was gonna say you've got really pretty eyes. But then you ran away."

Maya stared at him. "What?"

"Also," he added, "my cat has been staring at your shoes through the back door for like ten minutes. She only does that to people she likes. She's usually a total jerk to everyone."

Maya looked down. Her Converse were covered in doodles she'd drawn during math class—little cats and foxes and geometric patterns she'd obsessed over when she couldn't focus on anything else.

"You drew these?" Lucas asked.

"Yeah. When I'm bored."

"They're sick." He grinned, and for the first time all night, Maya didn't feel like she was performing. "My little sister would lose her mind. She's into that stuff."

"Your sister?"

"Yeah, she's eleven. Going through a phase." He leaned against the wall beside her. "So, you gonna tell me your name, or should I keep calling you Spinach Girl?"

Maya laughed, really laughed, in a way she hadn't all night. "Maya."

"Maya." He said it like he was trying it out. "I'm Lucas. And for the record? The spinach thing was like, barely visible. I was just trying to talk to you and panicked."

"You panicked?"

"Dude, you have no idea." He rubbed the back of his neck, looking suddenly younger. "I've been trying to come up with an excuse to talk to you since you walked in. The spinach was a coincidence."

Maya felt something shift in her chest, something tight and anxious loosening. Maybe that was the thing about growing up—you spent so much time worrying about who you were supposed to be that you forgot how to just be. The right people didn't care if you had spinach in your teeth or doodles on your shoes or if you laughed too loud or not enough.

Outside, through the glass door, a stray cat wound around someone's legs, wild and unbothered, entirely itself.

"You want to get out of here?" Maya asked. "There's a diner down the street."

Lucas smiled. "I thought you'd never ask."