The Spinach Incident

The cafeteria hummed with that specific brand of chaotic energy that only exists when you're trapped in a room with three hundred other people who'd all rather be literally anywhere else. I sat across from Jordan, my oldest friend in the world, watching her dissect her lunch with surgical precision.

"You're staring," she said, not looking up from the terrifying mountain of raw spinach on her tray.

"I'm admiring your commitment to the wellness grind," I said, gesturing vaguely at the nutritional crime scene before us. "What's with the rabbit food, anyway?"

Jordan sighed, finally meeting my eyes. "Marcus said I look flushed. Like, specifically. So now I'm convinced I have scurvy or something."

I nearly choked on my chocolate milk. "Scurvy? Jordan, you literally had an orange for breakfast. I saw you."

"That was TWO DAYS AGO, Maya." She stabbed a spinach leaf with unnecessary aggression. "And you know my dog stopped eating his regular food last week? Google said it could be vitamin deficiency. What if it's contagious?"

"Jordan."

"What?"

"Your dog is twelve. He's probably just tired of the same kibble every day. Also, diseases don't work like that."

She slumped dramatically, her chin hitting her palm with a thud. "I just want everything to be normal again. Like, before Marcus started noticing things about my face, and before my parents started fighting about money, and before I became a person who carries around a bottle of multivitamins like it's emotional support."

I reached across the table and took the spinach-laden fork from her hand. "You know what normal is? Normal is sitting in cafeteria silence while your best friend spirals about imaginary medical conditions because some guy paid her a mildly backhanded compliment."

Jordan cracked a smile. A real one. "It was kinda backhanded, right?"

"So backhanded it could've been a compliment about your non-existent scurvy." I pushed my tray toward her. "Trade you. My extremely nutritious chocolate chip cookie for your depression salad."

"But Marcus—"

"Marcus can deal with the fact that you're a human being who sometimes eats cookies." I leaned in, dropping my voice. "Also, I saw him checking your finsta yesterday. The flush thing? Definitely not the insult you think it is."

Jordan's eyes widened. "Wait, really?"

"Really." I grinned. "Now eat the cookie before I change my mind."

She took it, the corners of her mouth finally tipping up. The spinach remained untouched. Some problems, I've learned, can't be solved with nutritional supplements. But chocolate? That's basically medicine.