Goldfish Orange Hair

I dyed my hair orange the same week Jeremy's goldfish died. Coincidence? No. The universe has a weird sense of timing.

Freshman year homecoming was coming up and I was zombie-walking through eighth period pre-calc, my brain fried from staying up until 2AM scrolling through TikTok. Everyone else seemed to have it together. Madison had her dress picked out since August. Tyler already had a girlfriend. Meanwhile, I couldn't even decide if I was going to the dance.

Then Jeremy texts me: "RIP Peanut. He was a good fish."

Peanut the goldfish. Who lived in a bowl on Jeremy's desk for three years. That fish had more commitment than I'd ever had to anything.

"That's rough," I text back, but I'm thinking about how Peanut just swam in circles his whole life. Never questioned it. Just did his thing.

"My mom's making me have a funeral for him. You want to come?"

I almost said no. But then I thought about how I'd been zombie-ing through life lately - school, homework, sleep, repeat. Maybe I needed to show up for something real.

So I went. And there's Jeremy, looking miserable in his kitchen, holding a tiny origami boat. His little sister asks if goldfish go to heaven. His mom is literally tearing up.

And I'm standing there, my regular brown hair feeling wrong, feeling like I've been swimming in my own circle, never making any real moves.

"Life's short," Jeremy says, staring at the tiny boat. "Even for fish."

That night, I bought orange hair dye. Because why NOT?

When I showed up to school Monday, hair the color of a traffic cone, Madison actually laughed. But then she said, "Okay but lowkey, it's kinda a vibe?"

By homecoming, three other people had orange streaks. We looked ridiculous. We looked alive.

Peanut would've been proud.