Papaya Smoothie Sabotage

The thing about being sixteen is that sometimes you feel like a zombie before third period even starts. I'd been up till 2 AM doomscrolling through Mia's Instagram, basically cyber-stalking her like some desperate spy trying to decode whether her aesthetic beach posts meant she was into me or if that was just her whole vibe. Spoiler: it was just her vibe.

Now I was drowning—literally drowning—in the summer heat at my aunt's pool party, clutching the most offensive drink known to mankind: a papaya smoothie. The papaya chunks kept getting stuck in my straw like little orange enemies. Who even likes papaya? Nobody. It's the fruit version of that one kid who tries way too hard.

"You look like you're contemplating your entire existence," said Riley, sliding into the pool chair beside me. Riley, who had zero social anxiety and whose skin somehow didn't turn into a tomato in the sun.

"I'm contemplating this papaya situation," I said. "Also, I think Mia just posted another story. Should I view it? Is that too much? Am I crossing into full-blown stalker territory?"

Riley splashed water at me. "Dude, you're not a spy. You're just a guy with a crush who's overthinking everything. She posted four stories today. You viewing one of them isn't gonna make or break your entire future."

But here's the thing about being a teenager: everything feels like it's gonna make or break your entire future. Every unanswered text. Every awkward wave in the hallway. Every papaya smoothie that refuses to cooperate.

Mia walked by then, in this swimsuit that made my brain short-circuit, and I did what any rational person would do: I panicked and knocked my entire smoothie into the pool.

Orange catastrophe everywhere.

She stopped. Looked at the papaya disaster spreading through the water like toxic sludge. Then at me.

"That was definitely an interesting choice," she said, deadpan.

And then—AND THEN—she smiled. Not her aesthetic curated smile. An actual one.

"Want to help me clean this up before my aunt kills me?" I asked.

"Only if you promise to never drink papaya again," she said. "That stuff's foul."

Somehow, that was the beginning of everything. Not everything-everything. But the start of Mia and me bonded by fruit disaster and mutual dislike of papaya. And maybe that's not the most romantic origin story, but at sixteen, you take what you can get.

Also, the pool never did recover from the papaya incident. My aunt still brings it up at every family gathering. Worth it.