Goldfish Summer

My hair was supposed to be platinum blonde. Instead, it looked like a highlighter pen had thrown up on my head. Three days before freshman year, and I was rocking Fried Egg Yellow.

"You look... bold," Maya said, barely looking up from her phone.

"Bold like a traffic cone," I muttered.

The worst part? The pool party at Tyler's house was in two hours. Tyler, who'd sat behind me in algebra last year and somehow made solving for X look like a contact sport. Tyler, whose hair was perfect—this effortless mess of dark curls that probably smelled like expensive shampoo and confidence.

I considered feigning mono. Considered moving to a different zip code. Instead, I threw on a baseball cap and prayed for overcast weather.

"You going?" Maya asked. "Or you gonna stay here drowning your sorrows in Netflix?"

"Our cable's been out since Tuesday," I said. "So, yeah, I'm going. Better than staring at a blank screen."

The pool party was exactly what I expected: too much sunscreen, too many hormones, and Tyler shirtless by the diving board. I kept my cap on and claimed I was "protecting my color" from chlorine damage. Someone—I think it was Brianna—rolled her eyes so hard I worried they'd get stuck.

Then the game started. Truth or Dare, but somehow they'd lost the "Truth" part.

"I dare you to swallow a live goldfish," Tyler said, grinning like he'd just invented comedy.

Everyone froze. Because sticking his head out of Tyler's backyard pond was the most spectacular orange goldfish I'd ever seen, just floating there like it was waiting for its close-up.

"No way," I said. "That's messed up."

"What, scared?" Tyler challenged.

"I'm not killing a fish for your entertainment, Tyler."

The group went quiet. Like, *actually* quiet. Even Brianna stopped scrolling.

"Yo," someone said. "She's right."

Tyler's face did this complicated thing where he tried to look unbothered and failed.

"Whatever," he muttered. "It's just a fish."

"It's a living thing," I said, and then—because apparently I was done being scared—I took off my cap.

My hair exploded out in all its Fried Egg Yellow glory. There was a moment of stunned silence. Then Maya started laughing. Not mean laughing—real laughing, doubled over, holding her sides.

"What?" I said, my face burning. "I know it looks terrible."

"No," Maya gasped. "It's just—" She wheezed. "You look like that goldfish."

And then Tyler was laughing too, and somehow we were all laughing, me included, and nobody made anyone swallow anything alive, and the goldfish just kept swimming in his pond like he hadn't almost been a party trick.

"You know," Tyler said later, when everyone else had migrated to the garage for pizza, "it's actually kind of cool. Like, you're not afraid to look... different."

"It was an accident," I said, but I was smiling. "My hairdresser's assistant's cousin was supposed to watch the timer."

"Still," he said, and then—oh my god—"I like it."

Later that night, Maya and I sat on my bedroom floor eating stale popcorn and watching movies on my laptop because the cable was still out.

"So," she said. "Tyler, huh?"

"Shut up."

"Fried Egg Yellow," she said. "Bold move, Cox. Bold move."

I ran my hand through my ridiculous hair and thought about goldfish and pool parties and how sometimes the worst disasters turn out to be exactly what you needed.

"Yeah," I said. "I guess."