The Summer I Ripened

I spent the first week of July strategically carrying a giant **vitamin** water bottle everywhere, convinced it would make me look healthy and mature. The plan: become the new-and-improved Maya before sophomore year. The reality: spilling bright orange electrolytes on my white shirt at Javier's pool party.

Javier, whose family moved here from Barcelona last spring, leaned against the fence near the **padel** court he'd built in his backyard. I'd been secretly watching his TikToks about padel being "the next big thing" in America. Now here I was, damp and sticky, while he explained the rules to someone else.

"Hey, Vitamin Girl," he called, and I considered faking drowning in the deep end.

The pool situation wasn't even my worst moment. That came later when his mom offered **papaya** from a giant fruit arrangement, and I pretended to love it despite having never tried it. Spoiler: I don't love papaya. I especially don't love papaya while trying to look cool in front of the guy I've been sliding into DMs for three months.

"So," Javier said, sitting beside me on the patio. "I heard your parents don't even have cable TV. Like, actually?"

I shrugged. "We stream. Why pay for cable like it's 2012?"

"That's honestly kind of cool though," he said. "My dad's obsessed with having every channel but we never watch anything. It's just... money for nothing."

We talked about **swimming** - he was on varsity, I barely didn't drown in required gym class - and how his family missed the beach in Barcelona. His face lit up describing the Mediterranean. For twenty minutes, papaya-breath and all, I didn't feel like I was performing.

"Hey," he said as the sun started setting. "You want to actually learn padel? Not that fake explanation I gave earlier."

"I'm terrible at sports," I said.

"That's literally the point." He grinned. "Plus, I'm still mad you pretended to like that papaya. We need to work on your honesty."

Maybe the summer wouldn't be about reinventing myself after all. Maybe it would be about finding someone who liked the terrible, awkward, lying-about-tropical-fruit version of me instead.

"I'm in," I said.

And for the first time all summer, I put down the vitamin water.