Papaya Protocol

Leo's sneakers squeaked against the rubber track, his lungs burning like he'd swallowed actual fire. Again.

"Pick it up, Garcia!" Coach Miller yelled, clipboard raised like a weapon. "You're running like you've got lead weights in those Nikes!"

Leo muttered something that definitely wasn't appropriate for practice and pushed harder, his thighs screaming. This was the problem with being the worst runner on the varsity cross country team—everyone could see exactly how much you were struggling, in real time, while you were simultaneously trying not to die.

But that wasn't even his actual problem.

His actual problem was Maya, who sat in the cafeteria every single morning eating papaya like it was the most normal thing in the world, while everyone else was lucky if their parents sprung for name-brand cereal.

"You're literally staring again," said Jordan, sliding onto the bench across from him at lunch. "It's getting creepy."

"I'm not staring," Leo lied. "I'm observing. There's a difference."

"You're like a weird little spy." Jordan stabbed at her own lunch—a sad-looking sandwich. "Just go talk to her. Or at least stop making moon eyes every time she pulls out that exotic fruit."

Maya was everything Leo wasn't: confident, moved to town from somewhere cool (she'd mentioned Los Angeles once and now everyone assumed she was practically famous), and comfortable eating weird fruit in public without caring who was watching.

Meanwhile, Leo had been going to school with these same people since kindergarten, and he still managed to say embarrassing things approximately 47% of the time.

Then came the incident with the papaya.

He'd finally worked up the courage to sit near her—near, not with, baby steps—when he'd decided to ask what papaya even tasted like. But instead of words, what came out was: "So, is that like, a mutant melon or something?"

She'd stared at him.

He'd stared back.

The track team's captain, Tyler—who Leo had somehow managed to impress mostly by being terrible but persistent—had clapped him on the shoulder that afternoon and said, "Bro. You charged into that conversation like a bull in a china shop."

"Thanks, Tyler. Really feeling the support here."

"But hey," Tyler had added, "at least you actually said something. Last week you literally ran away when she looked at you."

Fair point.

So Leo did what any self-respecting teenager would do: he spent the next week researching papaya, learning that it was indigenous to southern Mexico and Central America, that it tasted like a cross between a cantaloupe and a mango, and that it was excellent in smoothies.

Armed with this information and absolutely zero game, he approached her again.

"Hey, about the mutant melon thing," he started, and she actually looked up from her phone, one eyebrow raised. "I did some research. Papaya's from Central America, it's been cultivated for thousands of years, and I bet it makes excellent smoothies."

Maya stared at him for a long moment. Then: "You literally Googled papaya because you felt bad about calling it a mutant melon?"

"...yes?"

"That's weirdly adorable." She pulled out the chair next to her. "Sit down, Papaya Boy. I'm Maya, and this fruit is actually from my grandma's garden, which she ships to me because she thinks I'm not eating enough vegetables."

"Fruit is different from vegetables—"

"Don't ruin it, Papaya Boy. Don't ruin it."

Leo sat. And for the first time since joining cross country, he didn't feel like he was running away from everything.