Goldfish Summer

I worked the pool monitor job because I needed cash for new running shoes, not because I loved chlorine and sunscreen. My first week, I almost quit when Tyler—the varsity swimmer with the annoyingly perfect abs—started calling me Goldfish.

"Because you're always staring at us from the deck, all wide-eyed and panicked," he'd joke, doing laps while I pretended I wasn't checking him out.

The real reason I stayed on deck? I couldn't swim. Not really. Not enough to save anyone if something went wrong. Every time someone's laugh cut through the humid afternoon air, I'd feel that old childhood panic—the way the water had pressed against my chest when I was seven, the silence beneath the surface, my uncle's hands pulling me up, gasping.

Bull. That's what Tyler called it when I finally admitted my fear mid-July. He was treading water in the deep end, resting after practice. "That's bull, Maya. You're literally scared of the one thing you're paid to monitor. That's some cosmic joke right there."

"Not everyone's a merman, Tyler," I shot back, but he was already swimming toward the ladder.

"Tomorrow morning. Be here. I'm teaching you."

I showed up. Not because I wanted to, but because refusing felt like admitting defeat—like confirming I really was just a goldfish in a world built for sharks. Tyler taught me in the empty pool at 6 AM, his patience surprisingly steady as I learned to float, then kick, then finally put my face under without my heart hammering against my ribs.

By August's last party, I wasn't perfect, but I could make it across the pool without panic clawing at my throat. When some kid did a cannonball right where I'd been terrified to tread water weeks before, I didn't freeze. I just monitored.

Tyler grinned from his lane. "See? No more bull."

I flipped him off, but I was smiling. Maybe I'd always be a runner first, but at least I wasn't stuck on the deck anymore. Goldfish evolve too, you know?