Goldfish Dreams at the Community Pool

The chlorine smell hit me before I even clocked in. Another summer lifeguarding at the rec center pool, watching little kids do cannonballs while my social life basically dissolved like those orange vitamin C tablets my mom's obsessed with. 'You need your immune support, Maya!' she'd yell as I dashed out the door, clutching the sickly sweet disc that'd been sitting on the counter since, like, forever.

But today was different. Today HE was coming. Jordan from my AP Chem class, who somehow made lab goggles look cute. My coworker Kai noticed me aggressively reorganizing the first aid kit for the third time.

'You good? You're acting mad sus.'

'I'm fine,' I snapped, though my voice definitely cracked. 'Just... prepping.'

Kai smirked. 'Riiight. Totally not freaking about Jordan.' He pointed at the goldfish bowl on the counter. 'Even Goldie looks stressed.'

Goldie was our office mascot—this sad little goldfish someone abandoned in the lost and found last summer. We'd named him Goldie because we were original like that. But honestly? Goldie was living his best fishy life, unlike me currently spiraling.

When Jordan walked in, everything went sideways. Literally. I gestured so hard while explaining the pool rules that my elbow knocked into the cable connecting the office TV. The whole setup crashed—monitor, DVD player, everything. Dead.

'Maya?' Jordan's voice made my stomach do that thing where it forgets how to organ.

'I can fix it,' I blurted, dropping to my knees. 'Totally got this.'

Spoiler: I did not got this. I spent twenty minutes tangled in cables while Jordan watched, trying not to laugh, actually failing because he was straight-up giggling at my hopeless attempts to reconnect everything. Kai was losing it behind the counter.

Finally, I just sat back, defeated. 'So... that happened.' My face burned hotter than the July sun.

But then Jordan sat down beside me. 'Here.' He reached over and somehow made sense of my cable chaos in like, ten seconds. The TV flickered back on.

'You're terrible at this,' he said, smiling.

'I'm aware.'

'It's kinda cute though.'

Wait. WHAT?

Later, as I float in the pool during my break, staring up at the ceiling, Goldie swimming in his little bowl nearby, I realize something. Maybe being a disaster isn't the worst thing. Maybe the messy moments, the uncool moments—those are actually the ones that matter. And maybe, just maybe, someone thinks that's worth staying around for.