The Green Smoothie Sabotage

Maya's first week at The Healthy Squeeze could've been worse. Mostly. The apron was two sizes too big, her trainer Tyler kept forgetting she existed, and the popular kids from school somehow always showed up when she was mid-sweat.

"What's in the Super Supreme?" The girl asking was Chloe, who sat two rows behind Maya in AP Bio and had approximately 2.4 million followers.

Maya's brain short-circuited. "It's got... spinach? And orange juice, and... other things."

"Cool." Chloe exchanged a look with her friends. That specific look.

The smoothie came out a violently bright green. Chloe posted it on her story with the caption "when healthy hits different." Within an hour, half the soccer team was ordering it.

"You're basically famous," Tyler said, finally acknowledging her existence. "But my dog's more popular on TikTok and he literally just sleeps."

Maya started tweaking the recipe. Added more orange. A splash of lemon. Some actual vitamin supplements she'd swiped from her mom's bathroom cabinet because the container said "immune system support" and honestly, AP Bio was killing everyone's immune systems.

Then came the incident.

The blender exploded. Green everywhere. All over her apron, her face, her somehow-still-white sneakers. Through the window, she saw Chloe and her friends losing it. Laughing. Not mean laughing—genuinely losing it.

Maya's face burned. She considered faking a family emergency. Maybe moving to a different state. Becoming a mysterious person who never spoke of their past as a smoothie girl.

Instead, she wiped her face with the back of her hand and walked to the register. A tall guy from the soccer team was grinning.

"That was legendary," he said. "Ten out of ten, would watch again."

"My life is a joke,"

"Nah." He pulled out his phone. "My fox terrier got skunked last week and I still made a TikTok about it. Embarrassment is just content waiting to happen."

He ordered another Super Supreme. His friends did too. By the end of her shift, Maya had somehow become the smoothie girl who "did it for the plot," which apparently was a good thing.

Her mom found the empty vitamin bottle that night.

"Did you take all my supplements?"

"I'm running a business, Mom. You wouldn't understand."

At school the next day, Chloe actually waved at her in AP Bio.

"Hey, can you add more orange next time? The green was kinda intense."

Maya smiled. "I'll see what I can do."

She was still the same girl who couldn't afford the cool shoes and tripped over nothing in hallways. But she was also the girl who made smoothines that went viral for all the wrong reasons, and honestly? That was way more interesting anyway.