Goldfish Lessons

Maya gripped her iPhone like a lifeline, thumbs flying across the screen as she positioned herself strategically behind the porch pillar. The pool party raged on without her—laughter, splashing, someone blasting Doja Cat from a waterproof speaker. She'd been hiding here for twenty minutes, her swimming gear still dry in her bag, watching Jake Torres cannonball into the deep end for the third time.

"You coming in or what?" Jake called out, dripping wet and grinning like he didn't just ruin her entire weekend with one question.

"Maybe later!" Maya shouted back, voice cracking. Smooth.

Her goldfish had died that morning. It wasn't even a good goldfish—just a twenty-cent carnival prize she'd won months ago and immediately regretted. But Bubbles had been *hers*, and now Bubbles was floating sideways in a bowl she'd forgotten to clean, and Maya was spiraling.

Lightning split the sky, purple and electric, followed immediately by thunder that shook the porch. The music cut out. Someone screamed. Within seconds, the pool area was chaos—people grabbing towels, scrambling for cover, rain beginning to hammer down in heavy sheets.

Maya ducked under the porch overhang, breath catching. Her iPhone buzzed: unknown number. weird that bubbles died. goldfish have 5 second memories anyway, so he died doing what he loved lol

She looked up. Jake stood there, wringing out his shirt, rain dripping from his eyelashes. His phone was dead in his hand.

"That was... weirdly specific," she said.

"I saw your Instagram story." He shrugged, actually looking nervous for the first time all night. "I didn't know what to say. My mom died when I was little. People always say the wrong thing."

They stood there as lightning cracked again, closer this time. The party had moved inside, leaving them alone in the gray-white flashes, the smell of ozone and pool chlorine filling the air.

"Five second memories," Maya repeated. "So he lived in the perpetual now. Never held a grudge. Never overthought anything. Just... existed."

"Sounds freeing." Jake's eyes found hers in the dark. "We should swimming sometime. I mean, go swimming. Not, like, drown. Obviously."

Maya laughed, and it was real. "Obviously."

The rain kept falling. Her iPhone stayed dark in her pocket. And for the first time all night, Maya wasn't thinking about what to say, or how she looked, or whether Jake would ever text her back.

She was just standing there, existing.