Poolside Bearings

Maya stood at the edge of the pool, clutching her solo cup like it was a lifeline. The party was everything she dreaded: bikini-clad girls performing synchronized dives, guys showing off their cannonballs, and Jake—the guy she'd been crushing on for months—now making out with Skylar by the deep end.

"You gonna swim or what?" Chloe called from the water, splashing water Maya's way. "Don't be boring."

Maya forced a smile. "Just cooling off."

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Her mom's text: *Goldfish didn't make it. So sorry, honey.*

Bubbles. Her orange goldfish, the one constant through her parents' divorce, the move to this suffocating suburb, and all the loneliness that followed. Now even he was gone.

She felt stupid for crying over a fish at a party, but the tears came anyway. She retreated behind the house, where the woods pressed dark against the fence.

And that's when she saw it.

A bear. Not a metaphorical "bear" like her brother called his intimidating gym teacher, but an actual black bear, nosing through the trash cans like it owned the place.

Maya froze. Her breath caught. The bear looked up, eyes meeting hers.

"BEAR!" she screamed, not caring if she sounded uncool. "BEAR!"

The party scrambled. Jake abandoned Skylar. Chloe stopped mid-dive. The bear, startled by the commotion, lumbered back into the woods like it had better places to be.

"Did you actually see a bear?" Jake asked, rushing over, forgetting Skylar completely. "Or were you just trying to get attention?"

"I saw it," Maya said, her heart still racing. "Right there."

Jake looked at her differently then. Like she was interesting. Like she was someone who'd seen something real.

"That's metal," he said.

Later, as they all sat on the patio, waiting for animal control, Maya found herself between Jake and Chloe, explaining exactly what the bear had looked like, how it had moved. She wasn't the quiet girl who couldn't swim anymore. She was the girl who'd faced a bear.

Her goldfish was gone, but somehow, in the chaos, Maya had found her bearings.