Goldfish Memory Protocol

I clicked through Jake's profile for the forty-seventh time that week. Being a social media spy wasn't in my job description, but teenagehood apparently required it. My thumb hovered over his story — him and his friends at the lake, looking like they belonged in a music video I wasn't cool enough to watch.

"Zo? You coming?" Maya leaned against my doorframe, holding up her phone. "Party starts in twenty."

"Can't. Mom's making me take these vitamins." I held up the orange bottle. "She thinks I'm deficient in something. Probably coolness."

Maya rolled her eyes so hard I worried they'd get stuck. "You're not gonna become interesting by swallowing supplements. Just come."

She wasn't wrong. The vitamins sat on my desk like a judgmental orange obstacle, each pill promising to fix something I didn't know was broken. That was the thing about being sixteen — everyone acted like you were supposed to have it figured out, but mostly you were just shuffling through days with the confidence of a goldfish in a bowl. Three seconds of memory, then: who am I? What am I doing here? Why is everyone else so much better at existing?

Outside, lightning cracked the sky purple. I loved storms — the way the world paused, how everything became electric and possible and dangerous all at once.

"Zoey." Mom's voice from downstairs. "Those vitamins aren't gonna swallow themselves."

"I know!"

Maya sighed. "You're overthinking it. Jake's not some mystical creature. He's just a guy who happens to be hot and in your chemistry class."

"He's not just hot. He gets me."

"You've never actually spoken to him."

"Details."

Another lightning flash, closer this time. The house lights flickered.

My phone buzzed. Jake's story again. A new one — just him laughing at something someone said, that smile that made my stomach do gymnastics routines I hadn't signed up for.

"That's it." Maya grabbed my arm. "You're coming. If he's at Tyler's party, you talk to him. If he's not, you talk to someone who isn't me or your mom or your goldfish-pill collection. Live a little."

She was right. The vitamins could wait. The spy work could wait. The overthinking could definitely wait.

"Fine," I said. "But if it's awkward, I'm blaming you."

"Deal." She grinned. "Now let's go before you change your mind and start researching vitamin deficiencies on WebMD again."

The storm outside mirrored the one in my chest as we walked to her car. For once, I wasn't thinking three seconds ahead. I was just here, lightning and possibility and maybe — just maybe — actually talking to Jake instead of just watching him exist through a screen.