Goldfish Summer

The fedora felt stupid the second I stepped through the gate. Like, actually cringe. But Maya had complimented it last week, so I kept it on, sweating through the humidity while everyone else splashed in Jensen's above-ground pool like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Nice hat, loser," called Tyler, doing a cannonball that soaked half the bystanders.

I adjusted the brim, pretending I hadn't heard. This was supposed to be the summer I leveled up—got invited to stuff, stopped being the kid who won a goldfish at the carnival and kept it for three years until my mom accidentally flushed it (still not over it, honestly). But here I was, seventeen and still hovering at the edge of every party, watching everyone else live.

Then Riley slid out of the pool, water dripping down their arms, that fox-eyed grin that made my stomach do actual gymnastics. They were new this year—confident in that way that looked effortless but probably wasn't.

"You coming in or what?" Riley asked, toeing the ladder.

"I don't have—"

"Borrow mine." They tossed me an extra towel and something shifted in the air between us. Not flirting, exactly. But something real.

I pulled off the hat, leaving it on a lawn chair with everyone else's discarded stuff. The pool water was shockingly cold, and for a second I panicked, flailing, until Riley's hand found my elbow. "You good?"

"Yeah," I said, surfacing, hair plastered to my forehead. "Actually, yeah."

We treaded water while the party blurred around us—Tyler being too loud, someone's phone blasting something we'd all pretend not to know the words to. And I thought about that goldfish, how it had lived its whole life in a tiny bowl, swimming in circles, never knowing there was an ocean out here.

"You're not like them," Riley said quietly.

"Is that bad?"

"Nah." They dove backward, grinning up at me through refraction. "It's good."

I stayed in until my fingers pruned, surfaced something new. The fedora stayed on the chair.