Goldfish at the Party

I felt like a **zombie** walking into Jordan's house party, caffeine-deprived and socially dead inside. My Converse squeaked on the hardwood while my brain screamed abort mission. This was it — my first real high school party, and I was already regretting everything.

A bowl of chips sat on the counter, daring me to look casual. I reached for some, but my hand knocked over a tiny decorative bowl instead. Three toy **goldfish** scattered across the floor, their plastic eyes judging my entire existence.

"Need help?"

I looked up. Riley — the guy from my English class who always drew in his notebook. He knelt down, gathering the goldfish like it was the most normal thing in the world. Meanwhile, I had a piece of **spinach** stuck between my front teeth, probably from lunch, and now it was too late to fix it.

"Thanks," I mumbled, my face burning.

"No problem." He handed me the goldfish bowl. "I'm Riley, by the way."

"Maya."

"Cool. You want to get out of here? This party's giving me a headache anyway."

We ended up on the front porch, sharing earbuds and listening to his playlist while he showed me sketches of characters he was creating for a graphic novel. We talked until midnight about everything — our weird middle school phases, why high school felt like a performance, how we both secretly loved emo music but would never admit it.

"You're pretty chill," Riley said as I grabbed my bike from the driveway.

"You too."

"See you in English?"

"Definitely."

I rode home with spinach still in my teeth, plastic goldfish somehow back in my pocket, and for the first time in forever, not feeling like a zombie at all. Sometimes the best nights happen when everything goes completely wrong.