Goldfish Summer

Maya's parents bought her the goldfish as a congratulations gift for making it through freshman year. She named him Galaxy because his orange scales shimmered like something cosmic.

"He's supposed to bring you tranquility," her mom said, setting up the tank on Maya's desk. Meanwhile, Maya's palms were sweating through her phone case because Tyler had finally replied to her Instagram story.

Her best friend Leo called her a fox for sliding into Tyler's DMs so smoothly, but Maya didn't feel smooth. She felt like a pretender, someone who'd spent the whole school year watching from the sidelines while everyone else seemed to know exactly who they were supposed to be.

Her neighbor Mrs. Chen grew spinach in her backyard and Maya helped sometimes, mainly because it was better than sitting in her room overthinking everything. Mrs. Chen told her about being sixteen in 1980s San Francisco, about how she'd tried to be someone she wasn't until she realized that exhausting herself to fit other people's expectations was like trying to hold lightning in your hands—beautiful for a second, then gone, leaving you burned.

The night of Tyler's party, Maya stood outside his house for twenty minutes, heart hammering. Galaxy swam in endless circles in her memory. She thought about what Mrs. Chen had said: "The ones who matter don't need you to perform. The ones who need you to perform don't matter."

Her phone buzzed. Leo: "U coming or what?"

Maya turned toward her house instead. She texted Leo that she wasn't feeling well. Inside, Galaxy swam to the front of his tank and stared at her with his unblinking goldfish eyes.

"You know what?" she whispered to him. "I'd rather hang out with you anyway."

She fed him an extra pinch of flakes, then texted Tyler: "Actually, I'm good tonight. Have fun though."

The next morning, Maya woke up to sunlight streaming through her window and the sound of Mrs. Chen working in her garden. Her phone showed three missed calls from Leo, five unread texts, and something else—notifications from people saying they'd had a weird time at Tyler's, that someone had gotten sick, that the music had been too loud, that it hadn't been worth it.

Maya walked outside to where Mrs. Chen was harvesting spinach. The morning air smelled like earth and possibility.

"You look like you figured something out," Mrs. Chen said, not looking up from her plants.

Maya thought about it. "Maybe I did."

"Good. Now help me with this spinach before it bolts."

Maya knelt in the dirt, her hands steady for the first time in months, and finally felt like she belonged in her own life.