Papaya Sundays

The papaya-colored swimsuit had seemed cute online. Now, standing at the edge of the country club pool while the popular kids lounged on matching towels, it felt less cute and more like a neon sign screaming I DON'T BELONG HERE.

"You coming in or what?" Leo called from the water. He was treading water near the diving well, that effortless grin on his face. The same grin he'd had last week when he'd invited me to his pool party after our physics group project.

I'd been at this school three months and still felt like everyone had some secret handbook I'd missed. Like how they all knew to bring padel rackets to the pool area because apparently the rich kids played padel now. When did tennis get rebranded?

"Yeah," I managed, "just gotta... fix my goggles." Classic lie. I just needed another thirty seconds to prepare myself for the public humiliation of revealing my pale mid-season body in a fluorescent orange two-piece.

"Want some fruit?" Maya appeared beside me, extending a tray with pineapple and—

"What's that?" I pointed at the pale orange wedges.

"Papaya. You've never had papaya?" Her tone wasn't mean, just genuinely surprised. "It's literally my favorite."

I took a piece. It tasted like summer and something expensive I couldn't pronounce. "It's... different."

Maya laughed. "That's one way to put it. You know, Leo talks about you constantly in physics. He's like, 'Maya, this girl actually GETS quantum mechanics.'"

My stomach did this little flip that had nothing to do with nerves. "Really?"

"No cap. Why do you think you're here? He doesn't invite just anyone to these things."

The water looked different suddenly. Less like a minefield of judgment, more like... just water. Leo was still waiting, still smiling. I wasn't going to become a popular kid or suddenly know how to play padel or understand why papaya cost eight dollars a pound.

But maybe I could just swim.

I pulled my goggles down and cannonballed in.

The explosion of water swallowed everything—the self-consciousness, the overthinking, the distance between me and everyone else. When I surfaced, Leo was splashing me and Maya was jumping in behind me and for the first time since moving here, I wasn't the new girl or the physics nerd or the girl in the wrong swimsuit.

I was just swimming, papaya still on my tongue, finally part of the current.