Three Inches of Courage

Maya's hair was supposed to be beach waves, not whatever this frizzy mess was after three hours at Jordan's pool party. She'd spent forty minutes with the curling iron that morning, but now it looked like she'd stuck her finger in an electrical socket. Not the vibe she was going for when she finally decided to make a move on Jordan.

"You good?" Jordan asked, plopping down beside her on the lawn chair. He was wearing those stupid sunglasses everyone had — the ones that made him look like a bug, but somehow he made it work. Maya's stomach did that thing it always did when he got close, like she'd swallowed a handful of butterflies.

"Literally dying," Maya said, which was only half true. The humidity was wrecking her, but the real problem was that she'd been sitting next to him for two hours and hadn't said anything remotely interesting.

Jordan's mom appeared with a fruit platter. "Anyone want papaya? It's fresh from the farmer's market."

Maya had never had papaya. She didn't even know what it was supposed to taste like. But Jordan reached for it, and suddenly she was reaching for it too because that's what she did — followed his lead like a lost puppy.

"This is actually fire," Jordan said.

Maya took a bite and immediately made a face. It tasted like... nothing and everything at once, like a melon that forgot how to be a melon. "It's... interesting?"

Jordan laughed, and Maya felt her face heat up. Then the backyard TV — mounted under the patio, connected by some suspiciously exposed cable — flickered and died. Someone yelled that the football game was gone, and Jordan's little brother ran over to investigate.

"I got this," Jordan said, standing up. He went to fiddle with the cable connection behind the TV.

Maya watched him, this boy she'd been crushing on since seventh grade, and suddenly it hit her: she was spending so much energy trying to be the person she thought he'd like that she wasn't being anyone at all. The papaya, the hair, the sitting quietly while everyone else joked around.

She stood up. "Hey Jordan?"

"Yeah?" He turned around, cable in hand.

"Your hair's doing that thing again," she said. "Where it sticks up in the back."

He froze. His face turned bright red. The whole backyard went quiet.

And then Maya did something she never did: she laughed. Not a polite laugh, but a real one. And Jordan started laughing too, and then everyone was laughing, and for the first time all day, Maya felt like she could actually breathe.

"You coming in?" Jordan asked later, standing at the edge of the pool.

Maya looked at her frizzy hair in the reflection of the sliding glass door. Yeah, it was a mess. Yeah, she'd made a fool of herself over tropical fruit. But she was done trying to be perfect.

She jumped in, clothes and all.