Glass Bowl Summer

The pool water rippled like liquid diamonds under the string lights, but Maya stood at the edge clutching her iPhone like a lifeline. Three notifications glowed on her screen: Kai had posted an Instagram story. Jasmine was tagged somewhere without her. And her mom wanted to know when she'd be home.

Typical Friday night.

"Yo, Maya! You coming in or what?" Tyler called from the deep end, doing that stupid cannonball he thought was hilarious.

She almost typed a lie about needing to check something important, but then she saw it—a small plastic bag on one of the patio tables. Inside, a single goldfish swam in cramped circles, its orange scales catching the party lights like a tiny, trapped galaxy.

Someone's party favor. Someone's joke. Someone's living thing in a plastic bag.

Maya walked over and sat cross-legged by the table. The fish pressed against the plastic, its mouth opening and closing in silent bubbles.

"Rough night, little guy?" she whispered.

Her palm tingled where she'd been gripping her phone so hard. She looked at the screen again—Kai's story was just him and his new college friends laughing at something she wasn't part of anymore. Jasmine had commented "miss u!!" on a post from someone Maya had never met.

The goldfish did another lap.

"You know," she said to the fish, "I feel like I'm in a really nice bowl sometimes. Like, everyone says it's great in here. The water's perfect. But I can't actually—"

"Maya?"

She jumped. It was Sasha, the girl from her history class who always sat in the back and drew on her wrists. The one nobody talked to.

"Sorry," Sasha said, clutching a soda can. "I just—were you talking to the fish?"

Maya almost laughed. "Yeah. I mean, look at him. He's just going in circles."

Sasha sat beside her, folding her legs underneath. "My brother won him at that carnival downtown. He forgot about him five minutes later."

They sat there while the party continued behind them—water splashing, music playing, people laughing in groups that always seemed to have room for everyone except her.

"I can take him," Maya heard herself say. "If your brother doesn't want him."

Sasha's eyebrows went up. "Really?"

"Yeah. I have this empty bowl in my room from when I tried to keep succulents. I killed them, but."

"Same," Sasha said, and they both laughed, not at anything in particular, just at the weirdness of sitting by a patio table while everyone else pretended to be having the best night ever.

Maya's phone buzzed again. Something else important. Someone else having more fun somewhere else.

She turned it face down on the table and looked at the fish in its bag.

"So," Sasha said. "You want help carrying him?"

"Yeah," Maya said. "Yeah, I think I do."