Three Feet from Perfect

The spinach stuck in my braces was basically a metaphor for my entire existence.

I'd spent forty minutes on my hair that morning. Forty. Carefully curling the pieces that framed my face, applying exactly three coats of mascara because that's what the TikTok girl said was perfect, convincing myself that today would be different. Today, at Jordan's end-of-school-year party, I would finally talk to him. Really talk to him. Not just the awkward 'hey' in the hallway that we'd been doing since September.

Then my mom packed me a spinach salad for lunch because 'you're growing, Maya, you need your iron.' And now, as I stood by the chain-link fence watching the guys play baseball in Jordan's backyard, I could FEEL the green disaster in my teeth.

"You're staring again," said Chloe, dangling her feet in the above-ground pool behind us. She held a plastic bag containing a goldfish she'd won earlier at the carnival. Its name was Chad, because of course it was.

"I am not staring. I'm observing. Strategically."

"Girl, you've been observing him for like, three years. At this point you could write a dissertation on Jordan Miller's batting stance."

She wasn't wrong. I'd watched him play baseball since seventh grade, back when he still wore those hideous striped knee socks that everyone made fun of but he somehow pulled off. Now he was up at bat, the sun catching the light brown in his hair, his swing smooth and practiced, and I was just Maya with spinach in her teeth and a heart that did stupid little flips every time he laughed at something his friends said.

Water splashed against the side of the pool. "You should just go over there. What's the worst that happens?"

"He could say 'who are you again?' He could laugh. He could look at me with that CONFUSED face he does when he doesn't understand something, and I would literally dissolve into the atmosphere."

"Or," Chloe said, "he could think it's cool that you finally came to one of these things. You're always invited, Maya. You just never show up."

That was the thing about growing up, I realized. It wasn't about being perfect. It wasn't about having no spinach in your teeth or never saying awkward things or knowing exactly what to say when someone cute looked at you. It was about showing up anyway. Even when it was terrifying. Even when you were 97% sure you'd embarrass yourself.

Jordan hit the ball hard — it sailed over everyone's heads, toward the fence where I stood.

He jogged over, flushed and smiling. "Hey Maya," he said, like it was the most natural thing in the world. "Glad you came."

And just like that, I wasn't the girl with spinach in her teeth anymore. I was just a girl standing in the sun, watching a boy look at her like she was someone worth knowing.

Maybe perfection was overrated. Maybe it was enough to just be three feet from happy, closing the distance one conversation at a time.