Pool Rules and Papaya Dares

The summer I turned sixteen, I scored the worst job at the Rec Center—pool monitor. Which basically meant sitting in a plastic chair for four hours, watching middle schoolers do cannonballs while my crush Jake practiced his dives.

Perfect position for lurking, honestly. Until the incident with the cable.

The automatic pool cover had been glitchy all season, but today it straight-up died. Half the pool shaded, half exposed like the world's most uneven tan line. Mr. Henderson, our manager who wore socks with sandals AND thought that was okay, handed me the manual.

"Just reattach the cable," he said, like I was some kind of mechanical genius. "YouTube it if you have to."

I stood there holding this thick, greasy cable like it was an alien artifact. Jake was still diving, looking effortless and unfairly hot. I couldn't just look up a tutorial in front of everyone—that's how you become known as the girl who doesn't know cables exist.

Then Sofia appeared. Queen of Social Media, three thousand followers, and the person who'd somehow convinced everyone that papaya was "literally life" last year. She flopped onto the chair next to mine.

"You look like you're holding a dead snake."

"It's a pool cable," I said. "I have zero clue what I'm doing."

Sofia snorted. "Mood. Hey, I bet you can't fix it AND eat this whole papaya I brought."

Her backpack produced the most wrinkled, sad-looking papaya I'd ever seen. It looked like it had personally offended nature.

"You're on," I said, because sixteen-year-old me had zero survival instincts.

Three YouTube tutorials later, I somehow managed to reattach the cable. The pool cover groaned to life, moving across the water like something from a sci-fi movie. Jake actually looked up and nodded at me.

The papaya was harder. It tasted like soap mixed with disappointment. I forced down bite after soggy bite while Sofia filmed it for her story.

"This is content," she said. "You're literally iconic."

The next day, everyone called me "Cable Girl" and someone started a papaya meme account. Jake asked if I wanted to hang out after my shift. Sofia and I sat by the pool, eating snacks and complaining about how papaya was definitely overrated.

Sometimes the worst days become the best ones. Also, papaya tastes like regret, but I'd eat it again.

Actually wait, that's not true. Never again.