Goldfish Summer

The carnival air smelled like cotton candy and desperation. Maya stood before the fish bowl game, clutching her last five dollars like it was a winning lottery ticket. Beside her, Jayden cracked his knuckles and smirked.

"You're gonna waste your money, May. Nobody actually wins those things."

"Watch me." Maya handed over the cash, accepted three ping pong balls, and tossed them like her life depended on it. The first two bounced off rims. The third—okay, she might have summoned some ancient carnival magic—sank perfectly into a middle bowl.

"NO WAY!" Jayden actually stopped scrolling TikTok. "You won a literal goldfish. What are you gonna do with it?"

"Name it Optimus Prime and love it forever," Maya said, though the baggie containing her new pet was already starting to feel like a responsibility she wasn't ready for.

That night, Maya stared at the goldfish swimming in its temporary bowl on her nightstand. Her mom had given her The Look when she'd walked through the door—not the angry one, the tired one. The one that said, "Your father moved out three months ago and I can't even choose what to watch on Netflix without crying, but sure, let's add a fish to this chaos."

Maya's hair had been her safe space since the divorce. She'd dyed it orange last month—not soft orange, but traffic cone, I-am-HERE orange. Her guidance counselor had asked if it was "a cry for help." Maya had told her it was a cry for "vibes, Deborah."

The goldfish, whose name was now definitely Optimus Prime, stared at her with those bug-out eyes. Something about his existence hit her different. He was just swimming in circles in this tiny bowl, and somehow that felt like the most relatable thing she'd ever seen. School, friends, the way Jayden had started looking at her lately when he thought she wouldn't notice—everything felt like swimming in circles.

"We're both just trying to survive, huh Optimus?" Maya whispered. The fish did a little flip, which she chose to interpret as agreement.

Her phone buzzed. Jayden: You still up?

Maya: Yeah. Optimus Prime is deep in thought

Jayden: lol can we talk tomorrow? Before school?

Her stomach did that thing where it forgot how to organ function. Tomorrow. Before school. That meant something. She looked at her orange hair in the mirror, then at the goldfish doing laps in his bowl.

"Okay," she told the room. "We're not gonna just swim in circles forever. Right?"

The goldfish did another flip, and Maya decided that was basically a promise. Tomorrow, she'd finally figure out what to say to Jayden. Tomorrow, she'd apologize to her mom for adding another living thing to their already-maxed-out life. Tomorrow, she'd maybe buy Optimus an actual tank.

Tonight, she watched him swim, and for the first time in three months, the circles didn't feel so bad.