The Green Smoothie Incident

Maya stared at her iPhone screen, thumbs hovering over the caption box. The photo was perfect—her in a crop top, holding a mason jar of green sludge, sunlight hitting her jawline just right. #WellnessJourney #NewMe #SpinachLife. She'd spent twenty minutes getting the lighting right. Twenty minutes that could've been studying for the bio test she was definitely about to fail.

"Are you seriously posting that?" Zara flopped onto Maya's bed, scrolling through her own phone. "You hate spinach. You literally spit out that smoothie five seconds after the timer went off."

"That's not the point," Maya muttered, but her fingers hesitated. "It's about—like—building my brand? Everyone's doing the wellness thing."

"Since when do you care what everyone's doing?"

Since Jake from AP English had commented "love this energy" on her friend's post. Since Maya had overheard him talking about how he hated girls who were "fake online." Since she'd decided that maybe if she reinvented herself as Authentic and Grounded and Health-Conscious, he'd finally notice her existed.

Buster, her family's elderly Golden Retriever, chose that moment to wander into her room, drool hanging from his jowl in an entirely un-photogenic way. He nudged her knee with his wet nose, demanding attention.

"Gross, Buster." Maya pushed him away. "I'm trying to have a moment here."

The dog whined and—because the universe had it out for her—proceeded to throw up all over her throw blanket. A bright green puddle. The spinach smoothie. Buster had eaten it when Maya wasn't looking.

"OH MY GOD." Zara cackled, actually falling off the bed. "That's—that's literally the most iconic thing that's ever happened."

Maya stared at the mess, at her phone, at her stupid curated self. Something in her chest cracked open. She started laughing too—this ugly, snorting laugh she'd been suppressing for months because it wasn't cute or ~aesthetic~.

"Delete it," she said, finally hitting delete on the draft instead of post. "All of it. The caption, the hashtags, the weird health girl persona I've been trying on."

"Thank GOD." Zara grabbed her backpack. "Now let's go get actual food. I'm thinking tacos. And maybe walk the dog before he destroys anything else?"

Maya looked at Buster, who looked entirely unrepentant. "Yeah," she said, grabbing her phone—not to perform, but to order food. "Let's do that."

Jake could wait. She had spinach to clean up and a dog to walk and a best friend who loved her messy, authentic, totally-not-instagrammable self. That was enough.