Goldfish at the Net

The country club parking lot smelled like expensive sunscreen and desperation. I adjusted my oversized padel racket—Dad's old one from when he actually had free time—and tried to look like I belonged. Which I didn't. Not really.

"You're up, Marcus," Chase called out, all Country Club entitlement and too-white teeth. His girlfriend Harper rolled her eyes so hard I thought they'd fall out of her head. She was carrying around this ridiculous goldfish in a baggie from the carnival booth like it was a Birkin. "Meet Neptune," she'd announced earlier. "He's my emotional support aquatic friend."

Right.

My stomach did that thing where it forgets how to stomach. This was it—the moment I'd either cement my status as the scholarship kid who couldn't hack it, or somehow magically transform into someone who didn't have to Google what padel was two weeks ago.

"Game point," Chase said, grinning like a shark that smelled something bloody in the water.

I looked at the goldfish baggie sitting on the bench beside the court. Harper had placed it there like some kind of mascot, this tiny orange fish swimming in confused circles, probably wondering why his whole life was now being played out in front of a bunch of teenagers in Ralph Lauren.

Something snapped in my chest. Maybe it was the way Harper had looked at me when she found out I was on financial aid—this tiny flicker of something that wasn't quite pity but wasn't quite not. Maybe it was three weeks of running from the truth that I was drowning here.

I served the ball so hard it made a sound like a gunshot against the glass wall.

Chase didn't even move. He just watched it bounce past him, that smile freezing into something stiff and wrong. The ball spun and died near the baseline.

"What—"

"Game," I said, and my voice didn't shake. "Thanks for the match."

Harper's eyes went wide. Neptune did a little flip in his baggie.

Later, she found me behind the equipment shed, sitting on the ground and eating some random vitamin gummy I'd found in my backpack. I didn't even know whose they were.

"That was... actually sick," she said, sinking down beside me. The goldfish baggie glowed in the sunset light. "Chase has been undefeated since eighth grade."

"He won't be tomorrow," I said. "He'll practice. He'll get better."

"Yeah, well." She leaned her head on my shoulder. "Neptune thinks you're cool anyway."

The fish swam in a lazy circle, completely unimpressed with all of us.

"You know," I said, "goldfish have way better memories than people think."

She laughed, and it sounded real. "Good. Then Neptune will remember this."

I would too.