Goldfish & Spinach Smiles

Maya stood at the edge of the Chandler's pool, clutching her solo cup like it was a lifeline. The water shimmered with that perfect Instagram-filter blue, but inside her chest, everything felt murky and wrong. This was supposed to be the party of the year—kickoff to sophomore summer, everyone who was anyone would be here—and Maya had spent forty-five minutes perfecting her outfit and exactly three minutes on her hair, which she now realized had been a mistake.

"Hey! Earth to Maya!" Sofia waved from the shallow end, droplets dripping from her perfectly tousled waves. "You coming in or what?"

Maya forced a smile. "Yeah, just, uh, warming up. You know how I get with cold water."

The truth was, she didn't know how she got with anything anymore. Last year, she'd been the girl who brought her pet goldfish to show-and-tell in eighth grade because she thought it was funny. This year, she was supposed to be someone who belonged at pool parties with Sofia Chen and people who had their own spot on the "visually aesthetic" wall.

She took a sip of her drink—something green and healthy-looking she'd grabbed from a cooler, trying to channel the kind of person who cared about antioxidants. The aftertaste was weirdly bitter, like spinach and pretension combined.

"Maya!" Zayden called from the diving board. "Truth or dare!"

Everyone stopped. Waiting. The pool surface rippled with expectant silence.

"Truth," she said automatically, because at least truth didn't require physical coordination.

"What's the most embarrassing thing that's happened to you this week?"

Maya's brain short-circuited. She could tell the truth—that she'd cried over a dead goldfish she'd had for three years, that she still slept with a stuffed narwhal, that she had no idea how to be the person everyone expected her to be. Or she could lie and say something cool and effortlessly embarrassing, like falling off a skateboard while attempting a trick.

Instead, she found herself saying: "I ate a spinach wrap before coming here and I'm pretty sure there's some stuck in my teeth."

Silence. Then someone snorted. Then Sofia was laughing, genuinely laughing, not mean-girl laughing, and suddenly everyone was laughing with her instead of at her.

"Oh my god," Sofia said, splashing over to the edge. "Here." She offered Maya her hand. "Come in. We've all been there. Literally everyone has spinach stories."

Maya took her hand. The pool was cold and shocking and perfect, and when she surfaced, dripping and laughing, she realized something: you couldn't be a goldfish in a bowl forever, swimming in safe circles. Eventually you had to jump into the deep end, even if you had spinach in your teeth.

"So," Zayden said, grinning. "who else has spinach stories? I'll go first—"

Maya floated on her back, looking up at the sky, and for the first time all night, she didn't feel like she was pretending to be someone she wasn't. The pool wasn't so deep after all.