Goldfish in the Deep End

The pool deck smelled like chlorine and anxiety, which was basically my entire sophomore year summed up in two distinct fragrances. I clutched my towel like a lifeline, watching the popular crowd dominate the shallow end while I hovered near the filter system like some kind of amphibious wallflower.

"Yo, Marcus, you gonna swim or just stand there looking like a confused goldfish?" Tyler yelled from the diving board, because apparently even in swim trunks, that boy had to perform.

My golden fish — actually a very real, very alive beta fish named Finbar who lived in a bowl in my bedroom — had more backbone than me. Finbar didn't care what anyone thought. Finbar just swam in circles and owned it.

Then I saw her. Maya. She was sitting alone on the pool's edge, dangling her feet in the water like she was testing the temperature of her own courage. Everyone called her Sphinx because she never spoke, just watched everything with those dark, knowing eyes. Like she knew secrets about all of us that we hadn't even figured out about ourselves.

"Your friend's being a fox again," someone whispered, and I realized they meant Tyler was doing something charismatic and annoying. But I wasn't looking at Tyler.

I wasn't looking at Tyler because a literal fox had just trotted out of the woods behind the pool fence, orange fur stark against the manicured suburban landscape. It stood there, tail twitching, watching us like we were the strange ones.

"Is that..." Maya whispered, actually speaking, finally breaking character, "is that a fox?"

And suddenly everyone was looking, the social hierarchy dissolved by actual wildlife. The fox — this sleek, wild thing that gave zero craps about who was popular or who couldn't do a flip turn — just stared at us with amber eyes before turning and trotting away like it had somewhere better to be.

"RIP to that fox," Tyler said. "It understood the assignment and left."

Maya looked at me, really looked at me, and smiled. "Wanna swim in the deep end?"

And something in my chest unclenched. Because Sphinxes weren't supposed to be approachable, and foxes weren't supposed to crash pool parties, and I wasn't supposed to stop feeling like a goldfish in an ocean I didn't understand.

But that day, all of us were just treading water together anyway.