Papara

The orange jersey hung too big on my shoulders. Way too big.

"You're gonna crush it, Leo," Marcus said, adjusting the papier-mâché bull head that had definitely seen better seasons. The left horn was drooping, and someone had drawn questionable eyebrows on it in Sharpie.

"I'm literally about to become the school mascot because you broke your ankle doing a TikTok challenge," I said, but I already knew I was doing it. Marcus had been my best friend since kindergarten, back when being the weird kid who collected rocks was acceptable social behavior. Now? At sixteen? You needed a personality transplant to survive the lunchroom.

Being the bull mascot was the opposite of low profile. It was screaming "look at me" in neon letters. I was the guy who sat in the back of AP Bio, the one who wore hoodies even when it was eighty degrees, the one who had a crush on Maya Rivera since seventh period English but had never said more than three words to her.

"Just be hype," Marcus said. "That's all you gotta do. Run around. Wave your arms. People love that crap."

The game was chaos. The bleachers were packed, the band was playing something that barely resembled music, and I was sweating through three layers of foam and fabric. I spotted Maya near the concession stand, laughing with her friends. My stomach did that thing it always did when she was around, like I'd swallowed a swarm of bees.

Then I saw him. Tyler, walking over to Maya with that smooth confidence that came naturally to some people. Tyler with the perfect hair and the varsity jacket and the way he made everything look easy. He was handing her something—an orange soda, their school colors.

And that's when it happened.

I don't know if it was the heat or the three energy drinks Marcus had made me chug or just the sheer cosmic injustice of watching Tyler make Maya laugh, but I decided in that moment that I was done being the background character in my own life. I started running.

I booked it across the gym floor, the bull head bouncing, the tail somehow wrapping around my leg. People were cheering. They thought it was a bit. They thought the mascot was just bringing the energy.

"MAYA," I yelled, muffled by the bull head. "MAYA, WAIT."

She turned, confused.

I skidded to a stop in front of her, breathing hard, and reached into the bull costume's pocket where I'd shoved something earlier that day. Something I'd picked up from my parents' bodega because she'd mentioned once, months ago, that she loved tropical fruit but never tried papaya.

"This is for you," I said, pulling out the slightly bruised papaya like it was a holy offering. "I mean, if you want it. It's probably good. I think my dad said you have to let it ripen more or—"

Maya just stared at me.

Then she started laughing. Not the mean kind. The real kind, where her eyes crinkled up.

"Is that a papaya?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said, still out of breath. "Yeah, it is."

"Leo?" she said. "Is that you in there?"

"Um," I said. "Yes."

She took the papaya. "Thanks. That's actually really sweet."

The gym went wild. The crowd thought it was a bit. A bit where the mascot gave someone fruit. Marcus was losing his mind on the sidelines. Tyler looked annoyed, which was honestly just a bonus.

I pulled off the bull head. My hair was plastered to my forehead. I was sweating everywhere. Maya was still holding the papaya like it was something precious.

"Do you want to sit with me at lunch on Monday?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, I'd like that."

Sometimes, I thought later, you have to put on a ridiculous costume and run across a gymnasium with tropical fruit to find out who you actually are. And sometimes—just sometimes—that weird, sweaty version of yourself is exactly who someone's been waiting to see.