Fox at the Fruit Stand

Maya's fingers scrolled through Instagram on her iPhone, lit by the bluish glow of her bedroom ceiling. At 2 AM, the algorithm had decided she needed to see What Skincare Routine I Use To Glow Like This, and now she was watching an influencer chop papaya while explaining how vitamin C was literally life-changing for her skin.

"Literally," Maya whispered to her ceiling fan.

Her phone dinged. A text from Chloe: we need 2 talk. u okay?

Maya stared at the screen. Chloe had been her best friend since they'd accidentally swapped lunchboxes in fourth grade. But lately, Chloe had joined the Popular Table™ and Maya had been demoted to Wave In The Hallway status.

The next morning, Maya sat at the edge of the school courtyard alone, until she wasn't.

"That seat taken?"

It was Fox — actual, legal name Fox, with the messy hair and the nose ring and the reputation for having been suspended for hacking the school's PA system to play sad girl music during homecoming.

"It's yours," Maya said.

Fox sat and pulled out the weirdest lunch Maya had ever seen: whole papaya, spoon, and a container of what looked like dirt. "My mom's obsessed with vitamin deficiencies now," Fox explained, cutting into the fruit. "She thinks everything can be solved with the right supplement. Anxiety? Vitamin D. Can't focus? Vitamin B. Existential dread about climate change? Vitamin... I don't know, she's probably working on one."

Maya laughed before she could stop herself.

Fox's Instagram was always blowing up with art and memes and people who seemed impossibly cool. But here, sitting in the courtyard, Fox was just... chill. They talked about papaya (weird but good), about the absurdity of teenage existence (extremely), and about how Chloe had stopped talking to them both around the same time.

"She's not different," Fox said, licking papaya juice off their thumb. "She's just... scared. We're all scared."

That afternoon, Maya finally texted Chloe back. wyd? And three minutes later, they were sitting on Maya's bedroom floor, eating papaya slices with chili powder, not saying anything about how they hadn't spoken in weeks.

Sometimes the most radical thing you could do was just sit with someone and be weird together. Vitamin deficiency crisis or not.