The Green in Your Grin

Maya's first week at Northwood High felt like walking through a minefield wearing clown shoes. The cafeteria alone was a social hierarchy that made AP Physics look like kindergarten math.

Today she'd finally mustered the courage to sit with the cross country team. Coach had been begging her to join since that mile run in gym class where she'd accidentally lapped everyone. Twice. But talking to people while awake? That was harder.

She adjusted her dad's old fitted hat—pulled low enough to hide the worst of her bad hair day, high enough that she could actually see. Her lucky hat. It had seen her through eighth grade graduation, her first breakup, and that time she threw up at Six Flags. It could handle this.

"So, Maya," said Jordan, the junior with the perfect curls and easy smile that made her stomach do things she didn't want to examine too closely. "You coming to practice tomorrow? We could use someone who actually knows what they're doing."

"Yeah, I'm—" Her iphone buzzed against the table. LOUDLY. Because apparently the universe wanted her to suffer. Everyone looked. She grabbed it, cheeks burning, but it was just her mom reminding her about her dentist appointment. The dentist she was seeing because her mother had convinced her she needed her teeth "professionally evaluated" before homecoming, whatever that meant.

She shoved the phone in her pocket. "Sorry. I'm totally coming to practice."

"Awesome." Jordan grinned. Then his expression flickered. Just for a second. "You, uh—you got a little something..."

Maya froze. The lunch lady's special had included creamed spinach, her least favorite food, but she'd eaten it because her dad had packed her lunch since kindergarten and apparently she still lacked survival instincts.

She touched her front teeth. Green. Bright, unmistakable, devastatingly green spinach wedged right between her two front teeth for the entire cross country team to witness.

"Oh my GOD," she whispered.

But then Jordan started laughing. Not mean laughing—the genuine, doubled-over kind that made his dimples pop. "Okay, I was gonna let you walk around with it all day because it's kinda iconic, but that's just cruel now." He tossed her a napkin. "We've all been there, freshman. Mine was a poppy seed bagel two days before picture day in eighth grade. I looked like I had cavities for three months."

The table relaxed. Someone else shared their embarrassing food story. By the time she'd cleaned her teeth, Maya was laughing too. And when Jordan said, "Seriously though, we're running hills tomorrow morning. 6 AM. Don't be late," she actually believed she belonged there.

The hat stayed on. The spinach was gone. And for the first time all week, Maya felt like maybe, just maybe, high school wouldn't actually kill her.