Goldfish and Riddles

Maya Chen pressed her back against the bathroom door, heart doing that thing where it tried to jump out of her chest like it forgot there were better places to be. Downstairs, Jordan's house party raged—awkward freshman grinding against confused seniors, cheap beer staining the carpet, the bass vibrating through the floorboards like the house was having a panic attack too.

She'd only come because Chloe had begged. "You can't keep being invisible forever," Chloe'd said, like it was that simple, like Maya could just flip a switch and become someone who didn't overthink everything until her brain short-circuited.

The bathroom had a tank on the counter. Inside, a goldfish swam in lazy circles, its orange scales catching the light from the waterproof LED strips someone had stuck to the mirror. Maya watched it, jealous of how it just *existed* without questioning whether it was doing existing correctly.

"You're literally hiding in the bathroom with a fish," she muttered to herself. "Peak loser behavior."

The door clicked open. Maya jumped like she'd been caught doing something criminal.

It was Leo. *The* Leo, whose hair was always messy in the way that took actual effort, whose hoodies were always slightly too big, who had that quiet thing going on that made everyone pay attention when he actually spoke. He'd been reading next to the sphinx statue in the library during free period all week—some weird aesthetic thing he was doing, leaning against the stone creature like he was absorbing its ancient riddle energy through osmosis.

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't know—"

"No, it's fine, I was just—" Maya started, then stopped because she didn't know how to finish that sentence without sounding unhinged.

He looked at the goldfish. "Cool fish."

"His name is Gerald," Maya said, which was a complete lie she made up on the spot. "He's got major main character energy."

Leo laughed, and something in Maya's chest did that fluttery thing that happened in romance novels but apparently also in real life, which was annoying because she didn't want to be that predictable.

"You're in my English class, right?" he asked. "You sit by the window. You never talk."

"I talk," Maya said defensively. "Just... not when talking is, like, optional."

"Fair." He leaned against the counter, studying her with those stupidly intense eyes. "You know what the sphinx's riddle was? What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?"

"Humans. We crawl as babies, walk as adults, use canes when we're old. I googled it last semester when you started doing your whole brooding-by-the-statue phase."

He blinked. "You noticed?"

"Literally everyone notices, Leo. You're not subtle."

"Huh." A grin spread across his face. "Okay, new riddle. What has a goldfish's memory but remembers everything it's ever anxious about?"

"Me," Maya said immediately. "That's literally me. That's the answer."

"Yeah." His voice went soft. "Me too."

Outside, rain started hammering against the window, sudden and violent, like the sky had been holding it in and finally couldn't anymore. Thunder shook the house.

"Jordan's gonna freak about his skylight," Maya said.

"Let him. He's been flexing on Instagram about this party all week. He deserves some water damage."

Maya snorted. "You're terrible."

"I'm honest." Leo hesitated, then: "Do you want to get out of here? We could go to the diner. They have those pancakes you can order with weird toppings."

"Like pickles?"

"If you're a monster, sure."

Maya looked at Gerald, doing another lap in his tiny kingdom. She looked at Leo, who was looking at her like she was someone worth knowing, which was honestly a whole vibe.

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I'd like that."

She followed him out, leaving Gerald to his aquatic solitude, stepping into the rain like it wasn't something to hide from but something to walk through, one wet and messy step at a time.