Goldfish Summer

The blue hair dye stained my forehead for three days. Mom said it looked like I'd been branded by a particularly aggressive smurf, but I didn't care. Freshman year at Northwood High demanded transformation, and I was determined to arrive as someone else entirely. Anyone else.

"You look like you got into a fight with a highlighter," said Jordan, sliding onto my bed and dangling my **iPhone** above her face like a sacred artifact. She tapped through my meticulously curated feed. "Also, your ex tagged you in that throwback. From when you still had braces and zero fashion sense."

I snatched the phone back. "Delete it."

"Too late. It's got seventeen likes already." She paused. "Why do you still have that **goldfish**?"

Bubbles hovered in his corner of the ten-gallon tank, trailing fins like forgotten tissues. My ex had won him at a carnival two months before dumping me via Snapchat while I was at orthodontist appointment. I'd kept the fish out of spite, feeding him those tiny flakes that smelled like regret and pond water.

"He's fine," I said. Bubbles rose to the surface, gulped, and sank back down.

"He's definitely not fine."

Two mornings later, Bubbles floated at the top, fins splayed like a tiny, golden surrender flag. I stared at him through my streak of blue eyeliner, feeling weirdly gutted. This fish had survived a carnival plastic bag, my ex's apartment, and my accidental three-day fasting period when I had strep. And now this?

Jordan showed up with a shoebox and a Sharpie. "We're doing this."

"Doing what?"

"Proper funeral. Obviously."

We buried Bubbles under the rosebush in my backyard at dusk. Jordan livestreamed it on TikTok because she's chaotic like that. I stared at the **iPhone** screen, watching strangers comment "RIP 🐟" and "this is so emo lmao" while I stood in my backyard with blue hair streaked by tears, holding a plastic shovel.

"Why is this the most followed I've ever been?" I whispered.

Jordan nudged me. "Because it's real. Your whole aesthetic is so curated it hurts, but this? This is authentic sadness. People can feel it."

Something clicked. The blue hair, the filtered photos, the careful reinvention—it was all performance. Standing there with dirt under my nails and a dead fish in a shoebox, I felt more like myself than I had in months.

Jordan wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "Real talk? You don't need the blue hair. You're interesting without it."

"I look like a smurf."

"A cool smurf." She paused. "My **friend**, you need better friends. Also, we should get bubble tea."

We walked inside, leaving Bubbles to become part of the roses. My phone buzzed with notifications—followers, comments, people who'd watched thirty seconds of my actual life and wanted more. But I left it in my pocket. Some things didn't need to be captured. Some things just needed to be lived.