Papaya Midnight Mission

The party at Jade's house was supposed to be lit, but I felt like a total spy casing the joint instead of an actual guest. I'd spent the first twenty minutes pretending to be deeply fascinated by a bowl of papaya cubes on the kitchen counter. Who even serves papaya at a high school party? I'd taken three, just to have something to do with my hands.

Then I saw him — Leo, the fox-eyed boy from my AP Bio class who never spoke to anyone. He was standing by the back door, looking like he was about to bail. Our eyes caught for half a second before he slipped outside.

"You coming or what?" he'd texted me two days ago, which had been confusing enough because we'd never actually spoken in person.

Now here I was, following him into Jade's backyard like the whole situation wasn't completely random.

"Thanks for coming," Leo said, not looking at me. He was crouched beside the neighbor's fence. "She's been back here for hours."

"Who?"

"My cat. Papaya." He finally looked up, and I realized he'd been crying. "She got out when my mom was bringing groceries in and I've been looking everywhere. I saw her jump the fence into this yard like three hours ago."

Oh.

OH.

The texts hadn't been about some dramatic party confession or whatever scenarios my brain had cooked up. He'd literally just needed someone to help him find his cat. Named Papaya. The universe was genuinely hilarious sometimes.

"Okay," I said, crouching beside him. "What does she look like?"

"Orange. Extremely judgmental. Will not come to you unless you have something better to offer." He pulled a small container from his pocket. "I brought the good stuff."

We spent the next hour creeping around the perimeter of Jade's yard while people posted stories about how #blessed the night was. We found Papaya under the deck, looking extremely unimpressed with both of us.

"You're not gonna tell anyone about this, right?" Leo asked as we walked back toward his house, Papaya purring in his arms like she'd planned the whole thing.

"About how I spent Friday night hunting a cat named Papaya with the mysterious Leo from Bio?" I grinned. "Nah. I'll just tell everyone we had a deep spiritual connection."

He laughed — actually laughed — and for the first time all night, I didn't feel like I was spying on my own life from the outside. I was just exactly where I was supposed to be.