Papaya at the End of the World

My hair looked like a rabid squirrel had attacked it. I'd spent forty-five minutes with the straightener, but the humidity had other plans. Now here I stood, outside Taylor's house, wishing I could just zombie-walk back home.

"You coming in or what?" Maya appeared beside me, her perfect curls somehow defying the weather. She handed me a cup. "Try this. It's fancy."

I peered into the red plastic cup. Pinkish-orange chunks floated in some kind of juice. "What is it?"

"Papaya," she said, like that explained everything. "Taylor's mom went through a 'tropical phase' or something. There's literally three papayas in the kitchen." She laughed, and I caught myself staring at the way her nose crinkled. "Just try it. Unless you're scared."

I wasn't scared. I was just me—regular, awkward, painfully average me. But something about Maya standing there in her denim jacket, expecting me to be cooler than I felt, made me take a sip.

Sweet. Weirdly sweet. Not terrible.

"Well?" She raised an eyebrow.

"It's... interesting," I managed.

"Interesting," she mimicked, grinning. "You're such a dork." But she said it like it was a good thing.

Inside, the bass vibrated through the floor. I watched kids from my AP Bio class dance like they weren't worried about GPAs or college applications or their parents finding out about the vodka someone had smuggled in a Sprite bottle. I stood there, papaya cup in hand, hair frizzing by the second, feeling like a zombie observing human behavior from behind glass.

Then Maya grabbed my hand. "Dance with me."

"I don't dance."

"Nobody knows that yet." She pulled me toward the makeshift dance floor in the living room. "Come on, zombie. Live a little."

And somewhere between the terrible pop music and Maya laughing at my disastrous attempts to move and the weird tropical fruit sitting in my stomach, I realized I didn't care about my hair. I didn't care about being awkward. I was just a person at a party, holding hands with a girl who thought papaya was worth trying, even if it was weird.

Sometimes that's what growing up feels like—taking a bite of something strange and realizing you might actually like the taste of being alive.