Poolside Goldfish Summer

The pool party at Tyler's house was already in full swing when I showed up, fashionably late because I'd spent twenty minutes staring at my reflection, trying to look like I didn't care. Not that I was trying to impress anyone. Especially not Maya.

"Yo, you made it!" Tyler shouted from where he was doing a cannonball into the deep end. Half the baseball team was there, including Tyler himself, who'd hit the winning home run last week and was now milking that social capital for all it was worth. I'd never been the athletic type, but I'd somehow earned a tentative invite.

I found Maya sitting by the **pool** edge, her legs dangling in the water, rainbow-striped **baseball** socks pulled up to her knees. We'd been lab partners since September, that weird kind of work friend where you never really hang outside the context that forced you together.

"Hey," she said, like she'd been waiting. "Saved you a spot."

I sat down next to her, trying to act cool while my stomach did that stupid flip it always did around her. "What are they watching on the TV inside?"

"Some reality show," she wrinkled her nose. "The **cable**'s been glitching anyway. Tyler's rich parents can't even get that right."

We sat there while people splashed around us, and I realized I'd been so nervous about talking to her that I'd forgotten to be nervous about anything else. Maya told me about the **goldfish** she'd won at a carnival last month, how she'd named it Dumbledore even though it was probably going to die in a week because carnival goldfish never lasted.

"That's kind of bleak," I said.

"That's life, though, right?" She nudged my shoulder. "Everything's temporary. You just gotta enjoy the goldfish while you got it."

Something in her expression shifted, and suddenly I was hyperaware that we were sitting close enough that our arms were almost touching, that she was looking at me different than she ever had in chem lab.

"Hey," she said, softer this time. "You know what? You're not as awkward as everyone says."

I laughed because what else could I do? "Everyone says that?"

"Tyler mentioned it once." She stood up, water dripping from her legs. "But Tyler's an idiot. Want to get out of here? My house has better snacks."

I followed her past Tyler doing another cannonball, past the baseball team singing along to terrible music, and realized that maybe the things we think will last forever don't, and the things we think are temporary sometimes do.

"Yeah," I said. "Let's go."

Sometimes you find your people in the most unexpected places. Sometimes they've been sitting next to you in lab all along.