Papaya Palm Reader

The pool party at Jordan's house was already giving Maya major anxiety, and she'd only been there fifteen minutes. Her cousin had insisted she come—"you can't spend the whole summer before freshman year in your room"—but Maya would literally rather be doing anything else than standing by this chlorine-filled pool in a two-piece she'd bought online and never actually worn in public.

"Hey, you want some?" Jordan's older sister appeared beside her, holding a bowl of what looked like orange mush. "It's papaya. My mom's on this tropical fruit kick."

Maya stared at it. She'd never had papaya in her life. In her neighborhood, fruit came from corner bodegas and was usually bruised apples or bananas that were brown before they were ripe. "Uh, sure?"

She took a bite. It was... weird. Sweet but kinda musky, like someone had described a fruit to her but the taste wasn't quite matching up.

"You hate it," Jordan's sister laughed. "It's okay, nobody actually likes papaya. We just pretend because my mom keeps buying it like we live in Hawaii or something."

Then the palm tree—a fake one Jordan's parents had set up for "ambiance"—started tilting. Someone had bumped into it, and now it was falling directly toward Maya and the bowl of papaya.

"Watch out!" some guy yelled, and suddenly hands were everywhere, pulling her back. She spilled papaya all over herself. All down her chest. Bright orange seeds everywhere.

The whole pool area went quiet.

Maya's face burned so hot she felt like she might literally dissolve. This was it. This would be her legacy. Papaya Girl.

But then the guy who'd pulled her back—some sophomore she didn't even know—started laughing. Not mean laughing. Just genuine laughter. "That was actually kind of epic," he said. "Like, statistically impressive how much papaya is now on you."

Someone else: "New challenge: who can get the most papaya on them?"

And then the whole vibe shifted. Someone jumped in the pool with papaya still on their hands. Maya's cousin handed her a towel but was already stripping down to her swimsuit. "Last one in does cannonballs off the roof!" (She didn't mean the roof. Probably.)

Maya looked down at her orange-stained chest, then at the pool, then at the sophomore who was still smiling at her like she hadn't just committed social suicide.

"You coming?" he asked.

Maya took a breath. wiped her hands on her towel—figured she'd deal with her palm being sticky later—and jumped in. The papaya washed away in the chlorine, and for the first time all summer, she actually felt like she might survive high school after all.