Goldfish in the Palm

Maya's life was ending. Not her actual life—obviously—but the curated version that existed on her iPhone, where every caption needed to be perfectly aesthetic and every photo required at least three minutes of editing.

Now she stood at Kara's pool party, phone in one hand, her other palm sweating against the plastic cup of lukewarm soda she'd been nursing for forty-five minutes. Everyone seemed so effortless in their summer vibes, while Maya felt like she was starring in a mental blooper reel.

"You look like you're calculating the meaning of existence," said a voice behind her.

She turned to find Devon, Kara's older brother, holding a tangled charging cable like it was some ancient artifact. He'd just gotten back from college, and somehow the awkward guy from two years ago had evolved into someone with actual shoulders and a jawline.

"Just trying to remember if I fed my goldfish before leaving," Maya heard herself say, and immediately wanted to dissolve into the pool. Why did her brain select that particular fact from her entire life?

Devon laughed—not the fake laugh everyone else was doing, but an actual one. "What's its name?"

"Bubbles. Because I'm twelve."

"Nice. Original." He gestured toward the garage. "I need to rescue my phone charger from the cable disaster zone. Want to escape?"

Maya nodded before she could overthink it.

They ended up sitting on the garage floor, surrounded by boxes and old sports equipment. Devon's phone had died mid-text, and they'd spent the last twenty minutes untangling the world's most knotted charging cable while Maya's phone sat forgotten beside her.

"You know what's weird?" Devon said, finally separating the cable from a speaker wire. "I spent all semester trying to make everything look perfect for Instagram, and the best moments were the ones I didn't document."

Maya looked at her phone, screen dark, no notifications demanding her attention. Then she looked at Devon, who wasn't checking his phone either. The palm of her hand wasn't sweating anymore.

"Yeah," she said. "Weird."

"Also," he added, "Bubbles is going to be fine. Fish are resilient."

"How do you know I wasn't lying about the fish?"

"You're not a good liar. It's endearing, really."

Maya didn't even care about the endearing part. She just sat there, untangling cables, not taking a single photo, feeling like maybe the uncurated version of life was actually worth showing up for.