Papaya Summer

Maya stood in the cafeteria, clutching her tray like a lifeline. The papaya sat there, bright orange and conspicuously healthy, while everyone else had pizza or the borderline-toxic nachos. She'd promised herself she'd stop caring what people thought, but apparently her resolution didn't apply to cafeteria fruit choices.

"What IS that?" Sasha asked, flicking her perfect hair over her shoulder. Her friend group—collectively known as The Royals because of course they were—giggled.

"It's papaya," Maya said, her voice barely above a whisper. "My mom's trying to get me to eat better."

"Papaya?" Sasha made a face like she'd just licked a battery. "That's literally something grandparents eat."

Maya's face burned. She could feel the heat creeping up her neck, that specific mortification that only happens in high school when you're fifteen and everything feels permanent.

Then Evan—Evan, who somehow sat at the table between the popular kids and the theater kids, this social neutral zone where nobody paid him much attention—leaned over. "Actually, papaya's legit. My dad's from Hawaii, we eat it all the time. You're supposed to put lime juice on it though."

Sasha rolled her eyes so hard it looked painful. "Nobody asked, Evan."

But then something weird happened. This freshman girl—tiny, with this massive backpack and a rainbow keychain that caught the light when she moved—sat down next to Maya. She had a streak of bright blue in her hair, like she'd done it herself in a bathroom mirror at 2 AM.

"I like your cat sweatshirt," the girl said to Maya, pointing at the vintage oversized thing Maya had thrifted last weekend. A sleepy cat stared out from faded pink fabric, surrounded by glitter that had mostly worn away.

"Oh, thanks."

"I'm Jazz," she said. "You're Maya, right? You're in AP Bio with my brother."

"Yeah, that's me."

They talked about AP Bio, about how Mr. Henderson gave way too much homework, about how Jazz's brother was literally obsessed with this band nobody had ever heard of. And somehow—Maya still didn't know how it happened—by the end of lunch, she'd eaten the papaya. It was actually good, sweet and soft, and she didn't feel like the world was ending.

"You know," Jazz said as they stood up to leave, "my brother says you're really smart. Like, smart-smart. Not just gets-good-grades smart."

Maya felt something warm in her chest that had nothing to do with embarrassment. "Tell him thanks?"

"Yeah. Also, you should come to our band practice Friday. My brother's band—The Summer Bears? They're looking for someone to run sound."

Maya almost laughed. Summer Bears. Who names a band that? But Jazz said it with such earnest conviction, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Maybe," Maya said. And she meant it.

Walking to her next class, she touched the cat on her sweatshirt. The papaya hadn't been that bad actually. And sometimes—just sometimes—fifteen didn't feel completely impossible.