Goldfish in the Palm of Your Hand

Maya's palms were sweating. Like, actually dripping. She wiped them on her jeans for the third time and wondered why she'd let Chloe talk her into coming to Tyler's party. Literally no one wanted to be the awkward sophomore standing alone while juniors played beer pong in the background.

She ducked into what she thought was the bathroom but ended up being Tyler's weirdly aesthetic bedroom. There on the desk sat a glass bowl with one lonely goldfish staring at her.

"Rough night, huh?" Maya whispered.

The goldfish did a little flip. Honestly, same.

Outside, someone yelled about sphinxing. Because apparently that was a thing now — striking an Egyptian cat-person pose for photos while pretending to be deep and mysterious. The sphinx trend had taken over their school sometime last month, and Maya still didn't get it. Probably because she was too busy overthinking everything to pose dramatically on lockers.

The door creaked open. Maya jumped like she'd been caught doing something illegal.

"Oh, sorry." A girl with wild curly hair stepped in. "I'm just feeding Barry."

"Barry?"

"The goldfish." The girl shook some flakes into the bowl. "I'm Leo, Tyler's sister. And you're hiding, right?"

Maya nodded slowly. "Is it that obvious?"

"I've been there." Leo sat on the bed and patted the space beside her. "Last year? Freshman year? I spent three hours at a party in someone's laundry room pretending to text people."

"Was it at least a nice laundry room?"

"It smelled like dryer sheets and desperation."

They both laughed, and Maya felt something unclench in her chest.

"You know what helps?" Leo said. "Palm reading. People love hearing about themselves. Makes you look confident and mysterious. It's total BS, but nobody cares."

"You're joking."

"Try me."

Maya hesitantly held out her hand. Leo traced the lines like she'd done this a million times.

"Hmm. Interesting. You're going to talk to that person you've been avoiding all night. And they're not going to be as scary as you think."

"That's not even real palm reading."

"It's real enough." Leo winked. "Barry thinks you should go for it."

The goldfish did another flip.

"Fine." Maya stood up. "But if I die of social awkwardness, I'm haunting you."

"Deal."

Maya walked back to the party palms only slightly less sweaty, goldfish confidence in her heart, ready to fake sphinx-level mystery until she actually felt some.