Goldfish Lessons

The first week of freshman year, I learned that high school is basically just a rodeo where everyone's pretending they know how to ride the bull. I was sitting in AP Biology, minding my own business, when Sarah—that's Sarah Miller, who runs the student Instagram like it's a media empire—leaned over and asked about the weird green smoothie my mom had packed. It was spinach. Obviously. Because apparently being a vegetarian wasn't punishment enough, my mom had decided our entire family needed to "detox." Whatever that means.

"What even IS that?" Sarah wrinkled her nose like she'd smelled something gross. Before I could explain, Jason—varsity quarterback, actual human golden child, and the reason I spent forty minutes on my eyeliner that morning—decided to save me. Or embarrass me. I'm still not sure which.

"That's spinach, Miller. Don't hate on her health game." He tapped my container with his knuckles. "Anyway, Maya's cool. She's in my bio group."

I wanted to die. He'd called me Maya. My name is Maria. But I wasn't about to correct him in front of everyone, so I just nodded like that's totally who I was. Maya. Cool, confident, spinach-drinking Maya who definitely didn't spend the previous night overanalyzing a three-minute conversation with her pet goldfish about how to talk to boys without sounding like an absolute idiot.

The thing about goldfish? They have this reputation for having zero memory span, but my fish Gilligan remembered everything. He knew when I walked into the room. He knew when I was happy versus when I'd had another terrible day of pretending to be someone I wasn't. Meanwhile, I was taking my daily vitamin gummies and wondering why I couldn't just be normal.

Two weeks later, Jason invited "Maya" to a party. I went. I wore my lucky shirt (black, lots of existential vibes) and practiced being chill in the mirror for forty minutes. But then Sarah was there, and she called me Maya, and suddenly I was trapped in this web of lies I'd accidentally created.

"So Maya," she said, all fake nice, "what's your story? Like, who are you?"

Everyone was watching. Jason was watching. And I realized I'd been so busy trying to be cool that I'd forgotten how to be real. So I told them the truth—about my name, about the spinach smoothies I secretly kind of liked, about how I talked to my fish because he was the best listener I knew. Jason laughed, but not mean. Like, actually laughed.

"Maria's way better," he said. "Maya sounds like you're trying too hard."

We're not dating or anything cliché like that. But sometimes we sit together at lunch, and he lets me complain about my mom's new kale phase. And Gilligan? He's still the only one who really gets it. Sometimes the strongest people aren't the ones riding the bull. Sometimes they're just figuring out how to stay on their own feet.