Spinach Teeth & Severed Connections

The spinach incident happened right when I was finally talking to Maya—like, actually talking, not just staring at the back of her head in homeroom. I'd been psyching myself up for weeks, and there I was, mid-sentence about her vintage Doc Martens, when her eyes went wide. Not the good kind. The 'you have something grotesque in your teeth' kind.

Two hours later, I'm hiding in my room nursing my social suicide, watching my goldfish, Captain Fin, swim endless circles in his bowl. At least someone's life is simple, I thought, though his memory span was allegedly three seconds so maybe not.

Then the wifi died.

The ethernet cable had disconnected from the back of my PC again. I'd been meaning to replace it—this thing was ancient, fraying at the ends like my dignity post-spinach disaster—but I hadn't gotten around to it. Because I was busy. Because I thought I had time.

My phone buzzed. Maya.

'So about earlier,' she texted. 'I was trying to warn you that Jason was behind you making faces. That's why my eyes went wide.'

I stared at my screen. 'The spinach??'

'What spinach? You had spinach? lol'

I flopped backward onto my bed, staring at the ceiling where I'd taped that cable knitting pattern I swore I'd learn during quarantine. The one that was still there, mocking me.

'So...' Maya typed. 'You still wanna talk about my Docs?'

I sat up, Captain Fin swimming enthusiastically now like he knew something I didn't.

'Yeah,' I texted back. 'But first I'm gonna go floss for like ten minutes.'

'do what you need to do 😂'

I grinned, already planning exactly how I'd accidentally bump into her at her locker on Monday. Sometimes social anxiety was just a cable that needed reconnecting. Sometimes the universe gave you second chances wrapped in humiliation. And sometimes goldfish kept swimming like they knew something about resilience that I was just figuring out.