Goldfish in the Lightning

The carnival hat sat crushed on my head, a neon monstrosity I'd agreed to wear because Tyler said it'd be 'lowkey fire.' Spoiler: it wasn't. It was humiliating, and somewhere between the funnel cake stand and the Tilt-A-Whirl, my crush Maya had spotted me and immediately turned the other direction.

"You look like a deranged party bear," my best friend Sam said, between shoving cheese fries into his mouth.

"Thanks, bro. Really helping the vibe."

The sky went that weird purple-green color that means trouble. Thunder cracked like the universe was splitting open. Then it hit—lightning, bright and terrifying, striking somewhere beyond the parking lot. The carnival lights flickered and died. People started screaming, but not like fun screaming. Like actual panic.

Maya was still somewhere in the crowd. I had to find her.

The rain came down in sheets—I'm talking literal walls of water, drenching everything in seconds. My stupid hat collapsed into a felt pancake. I was wading through puddles when I saw her, huddled under the overhang by the goldfish game, that one where you try to toss a ping pong ball into a tiny bowl to win a fish that'll probably die in three days.

"Maya!" I yelled over the thunder.

She looked up, hair plastered to her face, laughing. Actually laughing. "That hat!"

"Yeah, I know, I look—"

"No, it's perfect. It's so bad it's amazing."

A goldfish bowl had tipped over in the chaos, and a tiny orange fish was flopping in a puddle, gasping. Without thinking, I scooped it into my hands, cupping water around it. Maya grabbed my wrist and we made a run for the covered game booth, where she'd left her backpack.

We dumped the fish into her water bottle. It swam weakly, but it swam.

"You saved it," she said. "Like, actually saved it."

"Barely. It's probably gonna die anyway."

"Maybe." She smiled, and it was the kind of smile that makes you forget about rain and ruined hats. "But you tried. That's what counts."

My heart was doing something weird, like it might actually burst out of my chest like in those cartoons. The carnival was shutting down, people streaming toward their cars. Maya slung her backpack over her shoulder—the fish safely buckled inside.

"Walk with me?"

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, I can do that."

Sam gave me a look from across the parking lot. I ignored him. Some things were more important than cheese fries and sarcasm. Like goldfish rescues, and lightning storms, and possibly, just possibly, holding someone's hand while the rain kept falling.