Summer of the Papaya Incident

The vitamin gummies clattered as I restocked the shelf—my summer job at Nature's Glow, where the air always smelled like patchouli and desperation. I was hiding from the fact that sophomore year loomed, and I was still the girl who'd once thrown up in the middle school cafeteria.

"Yo, Maya!" Mia burst through the door, flip-flops slapping. "You will not believe who's here."

My stomach dropped. Please not him. Anyone but him.

"Your boyfriend," she whispered, then shouted, "CALEB'S BUYING A SMOOTHIE."

I smoothed my apron. "He's not my boyfriend. We made eye contact once at the pool."

"That's basically married." Mia pointed toward the counter where Caleb stood—tall, sun-bleached hair, the kind of effortless confidence I'd been faking since seventh grade. He ordered something complicated with berries and bee pollen.

"You got this," Mia hissed. "Be cool."

I wasn't cool. I was the girl who accidentally called her teacher 'mom' twice in one week.

When I reached for the papaya we kept for exotic smoothies, my elbow clipped a display bottle of biotin supplements. The whole shelf tipped. vitamin bottles rained down like confetti—glucosamine, zinc, fish oil that would haunt my dreams. The noise was catastrophic.

Caleb turned around.

Time stopped. I scrambled to pick up the bottles, but my foot slipped on spilled pills. I went down hard, papaya flying from my hand and splatting against Caleb's pristine white shirt.

Yellow seeds everywhere. He looked like he'd been attacked by a tropical fruit.

"I—" I croaked.

He stared at his shirt. Then at me. Then he started laughing. Not mean laughing. Real laughing.

"Dude," he said, "that's metal."

"Metal?" I squeaked.

"Yeah. Like, who even has the guts to assault someone with papaya?" He fished a seed from his collar. "I'm Caleb, by the way."

"Maya," I managed. "Also, I'm so sorry."

"Nah, this is the most interesting thing that's happened all summer." He grinned, and something in my chest that had been knotted since June finally loosened. "You work here tomorrow?"

"Every day until I die of embarrassment."

"Cool." He winked. "See you tomorrow, Papaya Girl."

Mia was losing it behind the protein powder. I sat there surrounded by scattered vitamins, wearing a name tag that said NATURAL HEALTH EXPERT, and realized something: maybe the coolest version of myself wasn't the one who never embarrassed herself. Maybe it was the one who survived it.

Besides, tomorrow I'd be working with Caleb. And I was absolutely, 100% going to hide the papaya.