The Green Eye in the Sky

Maya's cafeteria tray landed with a clatter that made half the seniors turn their heads. Again. Between her sat the inevitable mountain of **spinach**—the green stuff that tasted like disappointment and parental obligation.

"You gonna eat that?" Rico asked, already reaching for his third helping of everything.

"Spinach is basically a pyramid scheme," Maya muttered, pushing the leaves around. "Someone somewhere is getting paid to force this on us."

"Spoken like a true conspiracy theorist." Elena rolled her eyes, but there was affection in it. "Unlike some people, I actually like the green stuff."

The social hierarchy of Northwood High was a pyramid all its own, and Maya had spent three years trying to figure out where she fit. Athletes at the top, then the popular kids, then everyone else scrambling for the remaining crumbs.

But today was different. Today, Maya had something to prove.

The annual Talent Showcase signup sheet was pinned to the bulletin board by the exit. For three years, she'd watched from the sidelines while other people took center stage—while Rico did his terrible stand-up routine, while Elena sang like she was auditioning for The Voice, while everyone else seemed to know exactly who they were supposed to be.

Maya's fingers twitched in her pocket. For weeks, she'd been working on something in secret. Something that wasn't quite like anything else at school. A poetry-slash-spoken-word piece that mixed her family's Egyptian heritage with her totally American confusions about identity and belonging.

The sign-up sheet beckoned like destiny—or like a really bad idea that refused to go away.

"You're overthinking it," Rico said suddenly, like he could read minds. "Just do it already. The worst that happens is everyone laughs and you have to transfer schools."

"That's literally the worst case scenario," Elena pointed out.

"But also statistically unlikely," Rico countered.

The cafeteria lights flickered once, like a warning. Outside, the sky had turned that weird purple-gray that meant either a massive thunderstorm was about to hit or the world was ending. Probably just a storm.

**Lightning** cracked across the windows, and everyone jumped. The power flickered, then stayed off.

"Omen," someone whispered dramatically.

"Or just," Maya said, "the universe telling me to stop being a coward."

She stood up, tray in hand, and walked toward the exit where the sign-up sheet waited. Her heart was doing something weird and fluttery that she tried to ignore. Behind her, Rico and Elena were already placing bets on whether she'd actually go through with it.

The paper was half-filled already—names of people she knew, people she didn't, people who seemed so sure of themselves. Maya uncapped a Sharpie with her teeth, her hand steady despite the chaos in her chest.

"Maya Khalil," she wrote, "Spoken Word - 'The Space Between.'"

When the lights came back on, the sheet was fuller. And Maya was still there, heart racing but alive, standing in the space between who everyone thought she was and who she was about to become.

"Finally," Rico said from behind her. "Took you long enough."

Maya turned around, grinning despite herself. The spinach on her tray still looked terrible, but somehow, everything else was starting to look a little more like possibility.