Papaya Season Secrets

The produce section at Food-4-Less became my sanctuary after Marco and I had that fight behind the gym. Three weeks of avoiding each other's eyes in the hallway, three weeks of our friend group picking sides like it was middle school all over again. I spent my shifts arranging papayas in perfect pyramids, pretending I wasn't dying inside.

"You're gonna rot before you sell any of those," Gia said, leaning against the cardboard banana display with her arms crossed. We'd been neighbors since kindergarten, but somehow she'd morphed into someone I didn't recognize sophomore year. New friends. New vibe. The kind of person who said things were "cringe" unironically.

"At least I'm not stalking people's Instagram stories anymore," I shot back. "Saw you watching my story yesterday. Twice."

Her face flushed. "I wasn't stalking. I was just—" She cut herself off as her phone pinged. Three times in rapid succession. "Whatever. I came to tell you something."

The automatic doors slid open. An orange blur streaked through them—a Golden Retriever wearing a somehow-more-dignified-than-it-deserved bandana. A security guard yelled something about health codes as the dog made a beeline for me, tongue out, tail wagging like its life depended on it.

"That's Walter," Gia said, like she hadn't just abandoned our conversation completely.

"You named your dog Walter?"

"My sister did. He's obsessed with papayas. Don't ask me why, I don't make the rules." She watched as Walter sat obediently next to my produce display, giving me the full puppy-dog eyes. "He's also weirdly good at sensing when someone's hiding something."

"What?"

"Marco didn't ditch you because you're uncool or whatever narrative you've constructed in your head." She pulled a crumpled note from her pocket—Marco's handwriting. "He didn't want you to find out like this."

Walter chose that moment to snatch a papaya from my pyramid, sending the whole thing cascading across the floor. The manager appeared in the doorway, looking like he might actually explode.

"We need to go," Gia said, grabbing Walter's collar and my wrist simultaneously. "But first—you should know Marco's moving. His dad got a job in Seattle. End of summer. He didn't want to say goodbye."

The papayas kept rolling. Somewhere, overhead music played. And just like that, three weeks of feeling like I wasn't enough dissolved into something else entirely.

"I was literally spy-stalking his cousin's Facebook to see if he'd mentioned it," I admitted.

Gia actually smiled. "Gen Z behavior at its finest." She paused. "Wanna come over? We can figure out how to tell him goodbye without being weird about it."

Walter barked, papaya still clamped triumphantly in his jaws.

"Yeah," I said, already reaching for my apron strings. "Yeah, I do."