Goldfish in the Deep End

The pool party was already mid-swing when Maya showed up, clutching a plastic bag like it contained her entire soul. Inside swam Goldie, a carnival goldfish she'd won exactly thirty-seven minutes ago when Jeremy from pre-calc had been watching. Now Jeremy was nowhere to be found, and Maya was stuck babysitting a fish in a bag while everyone else was living their best life.

"No way you brought that," said Zoe, who'd been popular since before kindergarten and whose pool this was. She was eating papaya chunks from a ceramic bowl like it was totally normal. "That's literally a pet store waiting to happen."

"He doesn't have a tank yet," Maya mumbled, already regretting everything.

Zoe's boyfriend, Tyler, got dared to eat the papaya seeds. The entire pool deck went silent as he turned the exact shade of Maya's bathroom wall paint, then bolted toward the bushes. Someone screamed. Someone else started live-posting. Within seconds, half the party was crowded around the papaya disaster, phones out like it was the Super Bowl.

Maya almost slipped away to the pool's edge—until she locked eyes with Jeremy, who was finally there, floating in the water with his shirt off, which was unfair on multiple levels. He swam over, dripping pool water everywhere.

"Is that... is that the goldfish?" he asked, grinning like he knew exactly how ridiculous this was.

"His name is Goldie," Maya said, then immediately wanted to die.

"That's literally perfect." Jeremy's laugh was actual sunshine. "Want help finding him a temporary home? I've got this vintage bowl from when I went through my fish phase sophomore year. It's kinda embarrassing but—"

"Yes," Maya said way too fast. "Like, a hundred percent yes."

They ended up on the patio furniture away from the papaya chaos, Goldie swimming laps in a retro fishbowl that had definitely seen better decades. Jeremy told her about his fish phase, which somehow segued into his mom's obsession with vintage everything, which somehow segued into how he'd been wanting to talk to her since homecoming but never had the guts.

"Because I'm just awkward enough to bring a fish to a pool party?" Maya asked.

"Because you're cool enough to own it," Jeremy said, and Maya felt something shift inside her chest, something bigger than the pool, bigger than the goldfish, bigger than the ridiculous papaya incident everyone would be talking about on Monday.

Goldie swam another lap. Maya smiled. Sometimes the weirdest nights became the best ones—fish, disasters, and all.