Goldfish Summer

The air smelled like chlorine and teenage desperation. I stood by the edge of Miller's pool, nursing a lukewarm soda while everyone else acted like this was the most important night of our lives.

"You're not going in?" Fox asked, sliding onto the lounge chair beside me. Fox—real name Fiona, but nobody called her that since she dyed her hair copper last semester and started wearing that vintage leather jacket even in ninety-degree heat. She was the kind of mysterious that made people whisper rumors in the bathroom between classes.

I shrugged. "Not feeling it."

"Lame." She grinned, all sharp teeth and zero judgment. "I heard you're running for junior class president."

"Who told you that?"

"Everyone knows everything, Maya."

Right. Because that's how high school worked. You couldn't fart without three group chats dissecting the sound.

My phone buzzed. Mom again. She'd been blowing up my phone since I'd left the house three hours ago. Something about the goldfish I'd won at the carnival last week—Gerald, clearly a temporary name—and how he'd stopped swimming. Normal people flushed dead fish. My mother was conducting an investigation.

"Your mom's blowing up your phone, huh?" Fox nodded toward my pocket. "Mine too. Probably wondering why I haven't come home to study for the SATs that are, like, two years away."

"Mine thinks Gerald's faking it."

"Gerald?"

"The goldfish. She thinks he's depressed."

Fox laughed, actually laughed, head thrown back like she meant it. And in that moment, something shifted. The pool noise faded into the background, the running jokes about who hooked up with whom, the fake casual cool that everyone tried so hard to perform.

"Come on," Fox said, standing up and extending a hand. "Let's go check on Gerald."

"Now? It's midnight."

"Exactly. Summer's not going to last forever."

So we left. Left the party, left the expectations, left all of it. And as Fox's car peeled out of the driveway, I watched the water ripple in the rearview mirror, distorting everything it touched, making the whole night look like some beautiful, impossible dream.