Goldfish Protocol

The cafeteria buzzed with Friday energy, but I was stuck in crisis mode. My best friend Lena was practically vibrating beside me, her phone clutched like a grenade.

"He liked my story," she whispered, eyes wide. "On Instagram. Marcus actually noticed me."

Marcus. Everyone called him Fox because the dude was next-level sly - charming, calculated, always three moves ahead. He'd collected more broken hearts than vape pods in this school.

"Lena, that's literally the oldest trick in the book," I said, though my stomach did that stupid flutter thing. "Fox doesn't even know your middle name."

"He commented 'vibing hard' on my post about my cat though," she insisted, showing me the screenshot like it was holy scripture. "That's deep, right?"

I stared at my tray. My actual cat, Mochi, had more game than Marcus, and she spent 22 hours a day sleeping on clean laundry.

"Look," I said, "next period, watch how he operates. Fox doesn't vibe. He hunts."

Lena rolled her eyes so hard I thought they'd get stuck. "You're just jealous because you're still thinking about what happened at homecoming."

She wasn't wrong. Homecoming had been a whole thing - Marcus had handed me this plastic bag from the carnival booth, this sad looking goldfish inside, like it was some profound gesture. "For the girl who remembers everything," he'd said, all smolder intensity. And my dumb heart had actually accelerated.

The goldfish had lived exactly three days before my little brother's overfeeding incident took it out. But the point was, for seventy-two hours, I'd felt seen.

"Whatever," I muttered, just as Fox sauntered past our table, surrounded by his usual orbit of admirers. He caught my eye, did this micro-nod thing, and kept moving.

"SEE?" Lena hissed. "That's a thing!"

"That's his brand, Lena. That's literally his whole deal - making everything feel like a secret club you're almost cool enough to join."

But here's the thing about knowing the game - it doesn't always stop you from playing. Because when my phone buzzed during fifth period with a message from an unknown number - "that goldfish had better story potential than this school - was I wrong about you?" - I didn't block it.

I just stared at the screen, heart doing that complicated teenage thing where it's simultaneously cynical and completely hopeless, and thought about how some hooks just feel too sharp to pull out.

Mochi would be so disappointed in me.