Catfish and Court Kings

The **water** in the goldfish tank rippled as I hovered too close, fogging up the glass with my existential dread. Welcome to Pet Universe, where I spent three hours every day pretending to care about fish filtration systems while my so-called friends were probably at the **padel** courts living their best lives without me.

"Maya, someone's here for the comet **goldfish**," my manager called out, already disappearing into the back room.

I turned, expecting another suburban mom. Instead, it was Leo—Leo Flores, who sat at the cool table at lunch, whose Instagram stories were consistently VSCO-filtered perfection, who played padel with the popular kids every Friday.

"Hey," he said, looking uncharacteristically nervous. "You're Maya, right? From Mr. Henderson's English class?"

I managed something resembling a sentence while my brain short-circuited. This was fine. Totally fine.

"So I have this situation," Leo continued, rubbing the back of his neck. "My **cat** keeps trying to eat my fish, and my parents said if it happens again, I can't get any more pets. I need, like, the most secure tank setup possible. Money's not really an issue."

Something clicked. Leo Flores, who seemingly had everything together, was asking me for help. The social **pyramid** at our school had him comfortably at the top, yet here he was, vulnerable in a pet store.

"I can hook you up," I heard myself saying. "But you have to promise me something."

He raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Teach me how to play padel."

Leo's face broke into a grin. "Deal. But fair warning—I'm undefeated."

"We'll see about that, Flores."

Two months later, I was slicing a padel ball across the court while Leo cheered from the sidelines, my actual friends—the ones who'd shown up when I stopped trying to climb some invisible social ladder—laughing as I completely missed the shot. My cat, a rescue I'd named Comet, waited by the fence, unimpressed.

The water didn't feel so overwhelming anymore. Some things just needed time to settle.