Papaya Pool Party Fail

I never should've let Maya drag me to Tyler's pool party. But there I was, lurking in the corner of the deck like I was getting paid to spy on people instead of being a socially awkward fifteen-year-old in a tankini I'd bought three days ago and still wasn't feeling.

Tyler, of course, was being all Tyler — shirtless, dripping wet, his baseball cap backwards because apparently that's still a thing people think looks cool. He'd just finished varsity baseball practice and his hair was doing that annoying thing where it looks perfectly messy. Everyone else was in the pool, laughing and splashing like this was a movie and I'd forgotten my lines.

"Hey, you gonna swim or just stand there looking like you're solving complex math problems in your head?"

I jumped. Tyler. Standing right there. Dripping pool water onto my flip-flops.

"I'm... thinking about it," I managed, which was lame. So lame. My face was definitely doing that thing where it looks like I'm having an allergic reaction to my own anxiety.

He laughed, but not mean. "Here." He handed me this weird-looking fruit from the snack table. "Try this. My mom's obsessed with buying exotic stuff. It's papaya."

Papaya. I'd never even seen one in real life, let alone considered putting it in my mouth. But Tyler was watching me with those annoyingly nice eyes, and everyone in the pool was having the time of their lives, and suddenly I was just tired of being the girl who stood in corners at parties.

So I took a bite.

And immediately made a face like I'd just licked a battery.

Tyler laughed. An actual laugh. "Okay, that was terrible. You hate it."

"It tastes like... a melon that's given up on life," I said, and then he was really laughing, and somehow we were both laughing, and then he said, "Wash it down?" and grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the pool.

The water was cold and perfect and suddenly I was swimming, actually swimming, surrounded by people and noise and chlorine and this feeling that maybe I didn't always have to watch from the sidelines. Even if the papaya had been absolutely terrible.

Sometimes growing up means trying weird fruit and jumping into cold water and letting yourself be the kind of person who does things instead of just thinking about them.