The Spinach Incident

Maya's first real party — okay, basement gathering — was already spiraling. Tyler, the junior varsity linebacker built like a human **bull**, had been talking at her for twenty minutes about his JV football glory days. Her palms were sweating so much she could practically fill a **palm** reader's shop with the nervous energy radiating off her.

"And then coach said—" Tyler droned on.

Maya nodded, dying inside. Then she spotted Jordan by the snack table, looking effortlessly cool in that way that made everyone else seem like they were trying too hard. Jordan. The one who'd left a note in her locker last Tuesday that just said "your art in the hallway was actually good." Low-key the best compliment she'd gotten all year.

She made her escape. " bathroom," she mumbled, ducking away from Tyler's monologue.

In the bathroom mirror: disaster. **Spinach**. From the spinach dip Aunt Maria had made her bring. wedged between her front teeth like a green monument to social suicide. How long? Half an hour? Forty minutes of talking to multiple people, including Jordan, with this in her teeth?

This was it. This was her villain origin story.

She scrubbed it out with her finger, took a breath, and went back out. Jordan was still by the snacks, messing with a tangled **cable** behind the TV.

"Need help?" Maya asked, because apparently her mouth worked before her brain could stop it.

Jordan looked up, grinning. "Please. Ethan's little brother decided this was a **pyramid** of cables rather than a TV setup."

They untangled it together, shoulders brushing. Maya's heart did that thing where it forgot how to beat normally.

"Hey," Jordan said quietly, "did anyone ever tell you you're actually funny? Like, not in a try-hard way?"

Maya blinked. "No?

"Well, you are," Jordan said, and the smile was different now — not polite, not friendly, but interested. "Also, your spinach is gone now. Just FYI."

Maya froze. "You—

"I wasn't gonna say anything," Jordan said, laughing. "It would've been so awkward. For both of us."

"So you just watched me talk to people with—"

"I tried to signal you!" Jordan protested. "I literally pointed at my own teeth like five times. I thought you were ignoring me."

Maya started laughing, couldn't stop. The embarrassment was still there, but somehow it was okay. They sat on the basement steps and talked for an hour, about everything and nothing, while Tyler found someone else to monologue at.

Sometimes the worst moments become the best ones. Sometimes spinach in your teeth at a party leads to sitting on a basement steps with someone who makes your heart do that weird thing it did when you were little and saw your crush across the cafeteria.

Not that Maya had a crush. Obviously.

Jordan texted later that night: still thinking about that spinach.

Maya texted back: don't push your luck.

But she was smiling at her phone like the absolute loser she was, and somehow, that was perfect.