Paparaíza

The pool party at Jessica's house was supposed to be my rebranding moment. New school year, new me — confident, chill, ready to finally escape the "quiet kid" label I'd been dragging around since middle school. But two hours in, I was still hovering near the snack table, nursing a warm soda, watching everyone else swim and laugh like they'd been best friends since birth.

That's when Maya found me. She was doing that thing where she pretended to be totally absorbed in the fruit arrangement, casually rearranging pineapple chunks like she wasn't also visibly dying inside.

"Having fun?" she asked, deadpan.

"Oh my god, SO much fun," I fake-gushed. "I'm just taking a strategic break from all the swimming. Gotta pace myself, you know?"

Maya snorted. She picked up what looked like a papaya wedge, hesitated, then put it back. "I hate how everyone here already has their little groups. It's like we're still in seventh grade and nobody got the memo that we're supposed to be over that clique stuff."

"Right?" I said, feeling a weird rush of relief. "I've been standing here for twenty minutes pretending I'm genuinely interested in tortilla chip placement."

She laughed — actually laughed, not one of those fake polite laughs — and it was like something unlocked in my chest. "You know what? Let's just ditch."

"Ditch?"

"Yeah. My cousin's having a bonfire at the beach. Actual swimming, ocean, zero pressure. We can show up fashionably late and pretend we were somewhere way cooler than this." She grinned. "What do you say?"