Goldfish in the Deep End

The pool party raged like something straight out of a TikTok montage. Girls in bikini tops that matched their Instagram aesthetics, guys showing off cannonballs that were definitely not cute. Meanwhile, I stood by the snack table nursing a flat Sprite, my **palm**s sweating so much I might as well have jumped in the pool fully clothed.

"You gonna stand there all night or actually vibe?" Marcus appeared beside me, grabbing a handful of chips. He had this annoying habit of being everywhere at once, like he was collecting blackmail material for future YouTube diss tracks.

"I'm vibing," I lied. "Just taking it all in."

"Mhm." He pointed at my reflection in the sliding glass door. "You got **spinach** in your teeth, by the way. Since, like, seventh period."

I froze. Spinach. From the school cafeteria's attempt at a "gourmet" salad bar that nobody actually ate. And I'd been walking around with green stuff in my grill for four hours while talking to Jordan—the same Jordan who was currently across the deck looking like he owned everything.

Marcus cackled as I desperately tried to clean my teeth with my tongue. "That's what you get for trying to be healthy. Bro really said 'let me eat some leaves today' and this is the consequence."

The worst part? Jordan was heading my way.

"Hey," he said, all casual energy and perfect teeth. "Having fun?"

"Oh yeah, living my best life," I managed, still mentally screaming about the spinach situation. "Just admiring the..." My brain short-circuited. "The **goldfish**."

Jordan raised an eyebrow. "The... what?"

"The goldfish," I repeated, gesturing wildly at a random bowl on the snack table that definitely contained Goldfish crackers, not actual fish. "They're really... swimming. In the cracker bowl."

Silence. The kind of silence where you can hear individual **water** droplets hitting the pool deck and reconsidering every life choice that led to this moment.

"Cool," Jordan said slowly, backing away like I'd just confessed to believing in aliens. "I'm gonna... go swim now."

"You gotta **bear** with him," Marcus appeared out of nowhere, throwing an arm around my shoulders. "He's got main character energy, just sometimes the script glitches out."

Jordan shrugged. "Whatever. Hey, you coming in or what?"

I looked at the pool, at Marcus grinning like he knew something I didn't, at Jordan waiting for an answer like it actually mattered. The **palm** trees around the deck cast long shadows in the porch lights, and somewhere inside, someone started playing that song everyone's been obsessed with.

"Yeah," I said, finally. "Yeah, I'm coming."

Sometimes the worst moments become the best stories. Or at least, that's what I told myself as I jumped in the pool with my phone still in my pocket.