Goldfish don't eat papaya

Maya stood at the edge of the pool party, clutching her solo cup like a lifeline. The popular kids were doing cannonballs off the diving board, their laughter rippling across the water like annoying text notifications she couldn't swipe away.

"You coming in or what?" Jake called from the pool. His hair was wet, his smile was perfect, and Maya was absolutely, positively not getting in that water.

"Just chilling!" she yelled back, because apparently 'chilling' was better than admitting she hadn't gone swimming since her cousin's bat mitzvah disaster of '22.

Hailey surfaced next to Jake, holding up a bright orange fruit like it was a designer bag. "Omg, have you guys tried papaya? It's literally life-changing."

Maya froze. Papaya? That weird alien fruit her abuela kept buying? This was it—the cool kid trend she'd been missing. She grabbed a slice from the platter and shoved it in her mouth, pretending it wasn't the weirdest texture ever.

"So good," she choked out, while internally calculating how many seconds she could hold her breath before passing away from social mortification.

"You okay?" Jake swam over to the edge. "You look kind of... intense."

"Never better," Maya wheezed.

Then it happened. Her throat closed up. Her face felt like it was hosting its own personal fireworks show.

Papaya allergy. Of course. The universe had officially decided her life was a comedy.

She couldn't breathe. She couldn't speak. She absolutely could not let Jake Williams see her get carried away in an ambulance from a fruit allergy.

So Maya did the only logical thing: she sprinted toward the pool and launched herself in, fully clothed, phone in pocket, dignity abandoned.

underwater, her phone died instantly. But her throat opened up. She came up gasping, her mascara running, her jeans heavy, her social status neutralized.

Jake paddled over. "That was... a choice."

"I'm allergic to papaya," she said, treading water like a cat in a bathtub. "And apparently my survival instinct is 'throw myself in deep water.'"

He laughed. Not mean laughter. Real laughter.

"You know, my brother's goldfish has better survival instincts than you, and it once got stuck in a castle for three days."

Maya started laughing too. Maybe it was the oxygen deprivation. Maybe it was the fact that her phone was definitely dead and she'd just gone swimming in jeans. But for the first time all night, she wasn't faking it.

"Help me out?" she asked. "I can't actually swim that well."

Jake extended a hand. "Deal. But we're never speaking of the papaya incident again."

"Deal."