Goldfish & Other Things We Lose

Maya's goldfish, Fishsticks, was doing that floating thing again. The third goldfish this month, and honestly? At fourteen, she should've been too old for dead pets to feel like a personal failure.

"Need a ride to Chloe's party?" her dad called from downstairs.

Maya stared at her reflection. The purple hair dye job she'd attempted in secret had turned her hair into a patchy disaster—like a bruised plum, her brother had said. She'd spent two hours crying in the bathroom because apparently her life was ruined.

"I'm not going," she yelled back, but her phone was already blowing up. The group chat was losing it. *Camden said he might come*, Chloe had texted. Camden, who had that cat with the Instagram account. Camden, who'd noticed Maya's new Converse yesterday and said they were cool.

"Bear," her dad said, appearing in the doorway with that gentle look that made everything worse. He still used her childhood nickname, from when she'd been his fearless bear cub who could climb anything. "Your mom says you got purple hair dye on the sink again."

She covered her hair with a hoodie. "It looks terrible, okay? I can't go like this."

Her dad leaned against the doorframe. "Your cousin Sarah dyed her hair green in eighth grade. Look at her now. She's... well, she's confident, anyway."

Maya snorted. Sarah was a mess, but a confident one.

"Bear," he said again, softer this time. "The thing about hair is it grows back. The thing about parties is they keep happening. But you know what doesn't? Being fourteen and feeling like everything is the end of the world." He pointed at Fishsticks's bowl. "Flush that fish, okay? Before it starts smelling."

Maya stared at him. That was his advice?

But later, standing in Chloe's crowded basement with her hood pulled up, Camden noticed her immediately. "Nice purple hair," he said, and when she stammered that it was a disaster, he shrugged. "No, it's cool. My cat sheds on everything. It's called texture."

By midnight, Maya was holding Camden's phone, watching his cat fail hilariously at jumping onto a sofa. And for the first time all day, she wasn't thinking about her hair or the dead goldfish floating in its bowl back home.

Some things you lose. Some things you grow into. And sometimes the disasters were actually just texture.