Goldfish and Orange Suns

My orange hair was already fading from the chlorine, but that wasn't why I felt like a goldfish in a bowl. It was Maya Chen standing by the diving board, looking like she owned the entire swim center.

"You're staring again," whispered Luis, my best friend since kindergarten. "Just do it. Ask her to the party."

"I can't. I'm literally swimming in panic right now."

That's when Jackson—the human embodiment of a bull charging through life—shoved past me. "Watch it, freak." His entourage laughed, because apparently bullying still happened in junior year. I'd been dealing with Jackson since elementary school, and he never got creative.

But Maya actually turned around. "Hey, Leo. Are you coming to Sarah's tonight?"

My brain short-circuited. "Uh—yeah? Maybe?"

She smiled, and I swear the pool deck tilted. "Awesome. See you there."

Later, hiding in my room with Waffle, my actual goldfish, I stared at my sphinx poster on the wall. The riddle had always seemed stupid: "What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?" The answer was "a person"—crawling as baby, walking as adult, using cane as elder.

But suddenly it made sense. I'd been crawling through school invisible, but tonight... tonight I could finally walk.

"The party's at Jackson's house," Luis texted. "His parents are out. It's gonna be lit."

The irony wasn't lost on me. The bull's territory. But for once, I didn't care. Maya had noticed me. Me with my faded orange hair and my social anxiety and my weird obsession with riddles.

I fed Waffle an extra pinch of flakes. "Wish me luck, little guy."

For the first time, I wasn't the goldfish in the corner of the bowl. I was ready to swim.