Goldfish Summer

I felt like a literal goldfish at Maya's party last night, swimming laps in her above-ground pool while everyone else played beer pong on the deck. Three seconds of memory loop — that was me, replaying the same awkward intro over and over like a glitched TikTok.

"Hey, you're Liam's friend, right?" some girl asked while I was doing my third breaststroke lap.

I gave her the same shrug I'd given the last three people. "Yeah. We're in AP Calc together."

She nodded like this was fascinating intel and swam away. Classic.

The real disaster happened when Maya's older brother — who I'd been crushing on since freshman year, a total Sphinx of mystery who never spoke to anyone — suddenly appeared at poolside holding a net.

"There's a pyramid scheme happening in the deep end," he announced like this was a normal sentence.

I stopped mid-stroke. "What?"

"My fish escaped. They're forming alliances down there. Probably planning to overthrow the government. Want to help me catch them?"

His name was Leo. He had this permanently bored expression and eyes that actually twinkled, like, unironically. He was twenty and working on his anthropology thesis about cults or something.

"You keep goldfish in a pool?" I asked, treading water.

"They needed more room. They were getting existential in their bowl. Started questioning their purpose." Leo held out a hand to pull me out. "Help me and I'll tell you about the time I accidentally started a small religion at summer camp."

So there I was, at 2 AM, helping Leo catch four goldfish from a suburban pool while his friends filmed it for Instagram. His friends were cool — not like senior-year cool, but weird cool, the kind who made their own zines and knew about underground bands before they were cool.

"You're not like the others," Leo said while we finally netted the last fish, a brave little warrior he'd named Cleopatra.

I rolled my eyes. "Everyone says that."

"No, I mean — you didn't make fun of the fish. Most people would've been too chill to participate." He dried off Cleopatra with what I recognized as a very expensive scarf. "That's rare."

Something shifted in my chest. Maybe it was the absurdity of swimming after fish at dawn, or maybe it was how Leo looked at me like I was actually interesting, not just Liam's friend who couldn't do cool tricks. But for the first time in forever, I didn't feel like a goldfish in a bowl. I felt like I was actually swimming somewhere, even if I didn't know where.

"Same time tomorrow?" I asked. "Cleopatra might need rescuing again."