Goldfish at Midnight

The chlorine stung Maya's eyes as she floated in the **water**, staring up at the sky where twilight bled **orange** across the horizon. Tyler's graduation party sprawled around her — music thumping from Bluetooth speakers, laughter bubbling from the hot tub, the scent of grilled something drifting over from the patio. Her **iPhone** buzzed against the pool edge where she'd left it, face down. She'd been checking it every five minutes since arriving, her thumb hovering over Sophia's text bubble like she was defusing a bomb.

You good? Sophia had sent an hour ago. After Maya had spent three days avoiding her because of what happened at lunch on Tuesday. The Thing With The Papaya.

Maya still cringed thinking about it. She'd tried to slice the exotic **papaya** her mom packed for lunch, all casual like she ate weird fruit every day instead of questioning everything about herself since seventh period health class when Jayden had smirked and said, "You're trying too hard." The knife had slipped. Juice had dripped everywhere. Everyone had stared. And Sophia — Sophia who'd been Maya's person since preschool — had just watched with this expression Maya couldn't read.

"Yo, Maya!"

She treaded water as Tyler cannonballed in, sending waves splashing over everyone. "Your **goldfish** is trying to escape!"

Maya's heart stopped. The carnival prize from last summer — the one she'd named Toast because it always looked surprised — in its bowl on the patio table, completely forgotten until now.

She scrambled out of the pool, dripping and self-conscious, as a crowd gathered around the glass bowl where Toast was doing frantic laps near the surface. Someone had set it too close to the edge, and it was tilting precariously.

"Dude, that fish is having an existential crisis," Tyler laughed, but he was already reaching to steady the bowl.

Maya's hands shook as she checked Toast — fine, just dramatic — and then her phone lit up with a notification. Sophia again. Not a text this time. A photo: a papaya, sliced perfectly, arranged in a star pattern, captioned "For my person. 💪"

Something inside Maya loosened. She looked up from her phone to find Sophia watching her from across the pool, this tiny smile on her face. Maya's fingers moved before her overthinking brain could catch up.

"Hey," Sophia said, appearing beside her with two sodas. "That fish has more anxiety than I do during finals week."

Maya laughed, surprised and genuine. "Toast lives for drama."

"Toast?"

"He looks perpetually surprised. Like, 'oh no, I'm a fish, how did this happen.'"

Sophia snorted, and just like that, the weight that had been crushing Maya's chest for three days lifted. She hadn't ruined everything. She hadn't become uncool, or fake, or whatever Jayden had called her. She was just Maya, someone who sometimes struggled to slice exotic fruit and got attached to dramatic goldfish and had friends who brought her papayas arranged like stars.

The **orange** sky faded to deep purple as they sat there, knees pulled up, phone forgotten beside them, talking about nothing and everything while Toast did his anxious laps in his bowl, safe on stable ground.