Papaya Pit and the Pool Party Void

The humidity was already gross by noon, even before I stepped onto the patio where everyone from school was hanging out. I clutched my phone like a lifeline, scrolling through absolutely nothing while real humans laughed and splashed in the **pool** behind me.

"Yo, Marcus!" Carlos called from the deep end, dripping **water** everywhere. "Stop lurking and get in here! The temperature's actually decent for once."

I forced a smile. Carlos used to be my **friend** — like, actually my person. We'd spend entire weekends talking about everything and nothing. But since he made varsity **baseball** and started hanging with the popular crowd, I'd become... optional. The backup friend. The one he texted when his actual plans fell through.

I grabbed a paper plate from the snack table, trying to look busy. Someone had brought exotic fruit or something — **papaya** slices that looked way too fancy for a bunch of high schoolers who'd probably be happy with pizza rolls. I took a tentative bite. Not bad, actually. Kind of like if a melon and a mango had a baby and that baby was surprisingly chill.

"You're actually eating that?" Sophia materialized beside me, wiping chlorine from her sunglasses. She was on the swim team, had perfect hair, and never seemed to care about who was supposedly cool. "Carlos said you hate fruit."

I shrugged. "People change."

"Yeah, they do." She leaned against the table, watching him cannonball into the **water** while everyone cheered. "You know he talks about you, right? Like, all the time. 'Marcus this, Marcus that.' He thinks you're too good for us now."

The air left my chest. "What?"

"You're always doing your own thing," she said, like it was obvious. "Art, music, whatever. He thinks you're moving on and he's holding you back."

I stared at my papaya slice like it held the secrets to the universe. All summer, I'd thought Carlos was leaving me behind, and he probably thought I was outgrowing him. We were both stupid.

"Hey!" I yelled across the **pool**, grabbing everyone's attention. "Carlos! Bet you can't hit the **baseball** farther than I can skip this rock across the water!"

He laughed, that real laugh I hadn't heard in months. "You're on. But we're using actual rocks, not your weird fruit choices."

I jumped in, clothes and all. The **water** was perfect. Sophia high-fived me underwater. And for the first time all summer, things felt like they might actually be okay.