The Spinach Shake Catastrophe

Maya's new year resolution lasted exactly forty-seven minutes.

She'd spent winter break **running** through Pinterest fitness boards, promising herself this would be the semester she finally became—well, someone else. Someone who packed salads instead of settling for whatever mystery meat the cafeteria was serving. Someone who actually used the gym membership her mom paid for.

By second period, her carefully packed **spinach** salad had transformed into a wilted, sad-looking green mess in her backpack. The humiliation of pulling out soggy leaves at lunch while Jordan snagged the last slice of pepperoni pizza from the cafeteria line was almost too much to bear.

"You good?" Jordan asked, sliding onto the bench across from her. He had that annoying way of looking effortlessly put-together even with bedhead and a stained hoodie.

Maya poked at her salad. "Just trying out this new **vitamin** regimen my sister swears by. She says chlorophyll clears your skin or something."

Jordan snorted. "You're taking skincare advice from the same person who tried to dye her hair purple with Kool-Aid?"

"Touché."

They'd been doing this dance since seventh grade—carefully avoiding the elephant in the room while simultaneously being the only two people who actually noticed each other existed.

The cafeteria TV, mounted on the wall like some artifact from 2004, was playing on a loop because apparently the school was too cheap to fix the **cable** connection. Just the same four commercials and a weather report from three Tuesdays ago. Maya found herself weirdly mesmerized by the glitchy screen, anything to avoid making eye contact with Jordan.

"You wanna come over later?" Jordan asked suddenly, making Maya's heart do that traitorous fluttery thing. "My brother finally fixed the cable. We could binge that show you're always talking about."

Maya's spinach salad sat forgotten. Jordan's brother was supposedly fixing the cable, but they both knew that was code for "my parents are working late again and I don't want to be alone with my thoughts."

"Yeah," Maya said, surprising herself. "Yeah, I'd like that."

Later, curled up on Jordan's couch with the weirdly specific comfort of someone who knew exactly how you liked your popcorn, Maya realized she didn't need to reinvent herself. The spinach salad could wait. Some things were already perfect exactly as they were.