Papaya Palm Reader

Maya's mom had dropped her off at Jessica's house with a warning about "those wild high school parties." Maya rolled her eyes so hard it practically hurt. This wasn't a rager — it was Jessica's birthday gathering, and Jessica was literally the girl who brought organic papaya chunks to lunch because "processed snacks are toxic."

The problem wasn't the party. It was that Maya felt like a total spy in her own life. She'd spent the past week watching Daniel from across the cafeteria, memorizing his schedule like she was planning some covert operation instead of just trying to figure out if he'd laugh at her joke about the school's mystery meat.

Now here she was, stuck in the corner of Jessica's living room while everyone else crowded around the makeshift dance floor area. Her hair — which she'd spent forty-five minutes perfecting — was already falling flat. She kept touching it, paranoid it looked greasy.

"Hey!"

Maya jumped. Daniel. Standing there. Actually talking to her.

"You're Maya, right? From AP Euro?"

She opened her mouth but nothing came out. Her palms were literally sweating. This was it. The moment she'd been waiting for, and she was about to become that person whose hand slipped when they tried to high-five.

"Yeah," she finally managed. "Hi."

He gestured toward the food table. "Want to try something? Jessica's mom went all out on this tropical theme."

They ended up sitting on the back porch, eating papaya that Daniel admitted "tasted like soap, but I'm pretending I'm sophisticated enough to appreciate it." Maya laughed so hard papaya juice practically came out her nose.

"Your hair looks nice tonight," Daniel said suddenly.

Maya nearly choked on her papaya. "What? It's a mess."

"No, it's like... effortless. I wish I could do effortless."

She realized then that she'd been so busy spying on everyone else's lives, she'd forgotten to actually live in hers. Sometimes you're not the outsider watching from the shadows. Sometimes you're the person someone else is hoping will notice them.

"Want to go inside?" she asked. "I heard there's a makeshift palm reader setup. We should get our fortunes told."

Daniel grinned. "Only if you go first."

Maya stood up, palm extended. "Deal."