Goldfish Memory & Other Firsts

Riley's dad always said her attention span was worse than a goldfish, but she remembered EVERYTHING about Jackson's party last Friday. Especially the part where she humiliated herself in front of everyone.

She'd spent two hours straightening her hair and three panic-attacks deciding whether to wear the ripped jeans or the skirt that made her feel like she was playing dress-up in someone else's life. When she showed up, Jackson was already surrounded by the popular crowd—those effortlessly cool kids who moved through the hallways like a pack of foxes, sleek and untouchable. Riley felt like a woodland creature that had wandered into the wrong habitat.

"You came!" Jackson said, actually smiling at her. Her stomach did that thing where it felt like lightning had struck directly beneath her ribs. This was it. The moment she'd been daydreaming about since September.

Then his ex-girlfriend Ashley walked in, and suddenly Jackson's attention span rivaled any goldfish. Riley watched them talking, watched his body language shift toward her like a flower following sunlight, and felt something in her chest crack open. Not dramatically—no bull in a china shop moment—but quietly, like a door clicking shut.

She ended up on the back porch with some random guy who kept calling her "Red" even though her hair was clearly brown. They talked about nothing—school, the weird vending machine in the cafeteria that stole your money, his theory that teachers lived at school—until someone shouted "COPS!" and everyone scattered like actual foxes.

Riley ran three blocks in boots that were definitely not made for running, heart pounding like a drum solo, adrenaline making her feel electric and terrified and absolutely alive. She ducked behind someone's garage and waited, breathing hard, staring up at the sky where actual lightning split the darkness.

Her phone buzzed. *You okay? That was crazy.*

Jackson.

She stared at the message, thumb hovering over the screen, and realized something important: she didn't want to be the girl waiting for goldfish-attention from someone who treated her like an option. Not anymore. That was the OLD Riley.

The NEW Riley typed back: *Yeah. Going home though.*

Then she blocked him and walked home under the storm-breaking sky, feeling powerful and scared and like she was finally becoming someone she actually liked. Dad was wrong about the goldfish thing anyway. Some things, you remember forever.