Goldfish in the Lightning

I'd been spying on him since September—not in a creepy way, just strategic observation. Alex Rivera sat two rows ahead in homeroom, his hair always catching that perfect slice of sunlight through the window. I knew his schedule, his friends, his laugh. I didn't know he was watching back.

"You left this in the library," he said, sliding a folded note across my lunch tray. My stomach did that thing where it forgets how to exist. I'm pretty sure I had spinach stuck in my braces from my mom's "we need more greens" phase that started yesterday and would end tomorrow when she remembered I hated healthy food.

The note wasn't a note. It was a photograph—a polaroid, which was ridiculous because who used those anymore? But there I was: sitting on my front porch at midnight, hair messy, talking to my goldfish Bubbles like he was a person who could actually understand my monologue about how high school was basically a capitalist experiment designed to destroy our souls.

"I have a cat," I blurted out, because apparently my brain had quit working. "His name is Waffles and he hates everyone."

Alex smiled—actually smiled, not just polite-corner-of-his-mouth smiled. "I know. I've seen you two through your window. I live three houses down."

My face burned. "So you're the spy."

"We're both spies," he said, sitting down across from me. "Difference is, I took evidence."

Outside, lightning cracked the sky open, the storm I'd been watching build all day finally breaking. Rain hammered against the cafeteria windows like it was trying to get in on whatever this was.

"Why didn't you say anything?" I asked, my voice barely above the thunder.

"Because watching you talk to your goldfish about late-stage capitalism was the most interesting thing happening on this street." He paused. "Also, you kind of seemed like you needed privacy to be weird. I respect that."

I laughed, surprising myself. "I am weird. My goldfish is my only intellectual equal. My cat actively judges my life choices. I just want to survive eleventh grade without becoming a statistic."

"Same," Alex said. "Difference is, I don't have a goldfish to confide in. I just have a window."

We sat there as the storm raged, two spies who'd been watching each other through glass, finally on the same side. The spinach in my braces suddenly didn't matter. The goldfish alone in his tank didn't matter. What mattered was that someone had seen me at my weirdest and didn't look away.