Goldfish Don't Swim in Lightning

Maya stood at the edge of the pool, clutching her phone like a lifeline. The sophomore class end-of-year rager. Everyone was already splashing around, glowing and confident in their swimsuits, while she was still stuck in her cover-up, heart hammering like she'd just chugged three espresso shots.

"Hey! You coming in or what?" someone yelled. Jake. Of course Jake. The same Jake who'd accidentally called her "Maya from math" for three months straight.

"Uh, yeah! Just, um, taking my vitamins first!" she called back, then immediately cringed. Great, now she sounded like her mom.

She reached into her bag and fished out the bottle her mother had pressed into her hand that morning. "B-complex for stress, D for mood, omega-3 for... whatever omegas do." Her mom meant well, but sometimes Maya felt like her daughter was less a person and more a chemistry experiment she was trying to optimize.

A flash of light split the sky—not the good kind, the party-ruining kind. Thunder rattled the patio furniture.

"Everyone out!" someone screamed. "Lightning!"

Maya scrambled toward the covered porch, but something caught her eye. Under the deck, shadowed and twitchy, a cat. A scraggly, patchy tabby, eyes glowing like little golden coins.

"Hey there, buddy," she whispered, crouching down. "You hiding too?"

The cat hissed, then softened when she offered it some leftover chips from her bag.

"You know what my mom says?" Maya murmured, scratching behind its ears. "She says I'm like a goldfish. Says I stay in my little bowl because it's safe, but fish aren't supposed to stay in bowls. They're supposed to be in oceans or lakes or... something bigger."

The cat purred, a tiny motor against her hand.

"But here's the thing," Maya continued, voice dropping lower. "Goldfish don't have to worry about lightning striking their pool."

Another crack of thunder. The cat bolted.

Maya sat there for a moment, alone with her half-empty vitamin bottle and her insecurities. Then she stood up, stripped off her cover-up, and walked toward the pool where everyone was huddled under umbrellas, waiting out the storm.

"Whatever," she muttered, and cannonballed into the deep end.

Sometimes being a goldfish is safe. But sometimes you just gotta be the lightning.