Sweaty Palms & Vitamin Secrets

Maya's palms were sweating. Like, actual puddles in her hands.

She wiped them on her jeans—again—and stared at the group of seniors by the palm trees at lunch. They looked like they belonged in a music video: perfectly messy hair, vintage band tees, an effortless vibe Maya had been trying to fake since moving to Miami three months ago.

"You're gonna burn a hole in them," said Jax, sliding onto the bench beside her. He was the first person who'd actually talked to her like a normal human being instead of "the new girl"—which honestly, what was this, a teen movie from 2005?

Maya jumped. "What?"

"Your eyes. You're basically spy-level creeping on them right now." Jax grinned, all crooked teeth and easy confidence. "Not gonna lie, it's impressive dedication."

"I'm not creeping," Maya lied. "I'm... observing. For anthropological purposes."

"Sure, Dr. Maya." Jax pulled a tangled rainbow of earbuds from his pocket. "Wanna listen to this playlist I made? It's, like, emotionally devastating but also a bop."

Maya hesitated, then nodded. Jax was weird, but weird was better than invisible.

They sat there for twenty minutes, knees occasionally bumping, sharing earbuds and making fun of the overly dramatic lyrics. It was the most normal thing that had happened since she'd left Chicago.

Then Maya saw it: Chloe, the queen bee of the palm tree squad, slip something to the quietest girl in their group. A small orange bottle. The girl looked terrified, relieved, and grateful all at once.

Maya's heart did something complicated.

"Did you see that?" she whispered.

"See what?" Jax asked, but then he followed her gaze and his face went serious. "Oh. That."

"Is that...?"

"Vitamin D supplements," Jax said quietly. "Chloe's mom has some weird wellness thing. She makes Chloe give them to anyone who looks 'sun-deficient.' Which is apparently everyone except Chloe."

Maya stared at him. "Wait, what?"

"I know, right?" Jax shook his head. "I thought she was dealing behind the bleachers last year, but no. Just aggressively distributing vitamins like a disapproving grandmother."

Maya started laughing and couldn't stop. The tension she'd been carrying since August—since her parents' divorce, since the move, since the first day of school when nobody looked twice at her—it all unraveled, right there on a scratched lunch bench.

"You good?" Jax asked, but he was smiling too.

"Yeah," she said, wiping actual tears from her eyes. "Yeah, I'm good."

Her palms weren't sweating anymore.

"So," Jax said, "hypothetically, if I wanted to exchange numbers with my new accomplice in the Great Vitamin Investigation... would that be weird?"

Maya grinned. "Hypothetically? Not weird at all."