Goldfish and Game Points

Maya stood at the edge of the padel court, her grip tightening around the racket until her knuckles turned white. The Friday night lights of the community rec center blazed above, turning everything slightly golden and surreal. Across the net, Jake and his perfect hair were laughing at something Chloe said. Probably something actually funny. Maya was just the extra they'd needed to make teams even.

"You good, Maya?" Jake called. "Or you still recovering from last weekend's party?"

Last weekend. The spinach incident. Maya had spent three hours getting ready, only to spend the next three days with Snapchat screenshots of herself grinning with a bright green chunk of spinach lodged between her front teeth circulating through the entire sophomore class. She'd wanted to disappear. To literally become invisible.

Instead, she'd won a goldfish in a plastic bag from some sketchy carnival game booth that her friend's cousin had set up in the backyard. She'd named him Toast, and now he swam in a bowl on her nightstand, his tiny mouth opening and closing like he was perpetually shocked by her existence.

"I'm good," Maya yelled back, even though she absolutely was not. "Bring it."

The ball sailed toward her. She swung, missed entirely, and somehow managed to hit herself in the shin with her own racket. The whole court erupted. Not in a mean way—they were all laughing with her, not at her, or at least that's what she told herself as her face burned hotter than the padel court surface.

"That's what I'm talking about!" Jake grinned. "Maya's out here fighting invisible bears."

Bears. Because why not add bears to the list of things she couldn't handle right now. Maya's mom had gone through this phase last year where she was obsessed with them being her "spirit animal," which had been approximately zero percent helpful when Maya was trying to explain why she didn't want to go to summer wilderness camp.

"Yeah, well," Maya said, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, "the bears never saw it coming."

Chloe actually snorted. "Okay, I respect that energy."

They played for another hour. Maya's shots gradually became less disastrous. She even made two points, which felt like winning the Olympics given her previous performance. When Jake high-fived her afterward, it felt genuine—not the kind you give to make someone feel better, but the kind you give when someone actually did something cool.

"Same time next Friday?" Chloe asked. "We're teaching Maya the advanced strategies. Bear evasion and all."

"Wouldn't miss it," Maya said, and realized she actually meant it.

That night, she fed Toast an extra pinch of fish food and watched him do his tiny laps. The spinach memes were probably still circulating. She was still the world's worst padel player. But somehow, for the first time in weeks, none of that seemed like the end of the world.