Fox & Goldfish Summer

The orange hair dye hadn't quite taken to Maya's dark roots, leaving her looking like a failed science experiment. She stared at herself in the bathroom mirror while downstairs, the sounds of her sister's graduation party thumped through the floorboards. Bass heavy. Adults laughing. All the things that made her want to stay locked in her room forever.

Then her phone buzzed. Fox.

"You coming down or what?"

Fox – real name Fiona, earned the nickname freshman year for talking her way out of detention six times – had been Maya's person since they bonded over shared misery in AP Bio. Now Fox was downstairs, probably charming all of Maya's sister's college friends with that effortless charisma she wielded like a weapon.

Maya typed back: "My hair looks like a traffic cone. I'm not coming out."

"Lame. Come anyway. I won like five goldfish from that carnival game booth. I'm literally giving them away before your mom makes us put them in the actual pond."

Maya sighed. Last month, Fox had convinced her to sneak into a sold-out movie using nothing but a confidence and a retired employee's old nametag she'd found. The month before that, Fox had talked them out of a speeding ticket by crying on cue. Fox was chaos, but she was *their* chaos.

She padded downstairs in her oversized hoodie, preparing to make a quick exit. But Fox spotted her immediately, dragging her toward the back patio where a giant bowl sat on a picnic table, three tiny orange fish darting around inside.

"Take one," Fox said, thrusting a plastic bag filled with water at her. "Your parents can't get mad at you for having a pet. It's basically a plant that swims."

"I can't even keep succulents alive," Maya protested, but Fox was already turning away, her attention captured by someone calling her name.

Later that night, Maya lay on her bed watching her new goldfish swim in its mason jar on her nightstand, thinking about how Fox moved through the world like she owned it – hair perfectly messy, laugh too loud, completely unbothered. Meanwhile Maya was up here worrying about her orange roots and whether anyone noticed she'd spent the entire party hiding in the bathroom.

The goldfish surfaced, blowing a tiny bubble.

"Same," Maya whispered to it.

Tomorrow she'd make Fox teach her how to be fearless. Or at least how to fake it convincingly. That's basically the same thing anyway.