Swimming in Circles

The pool party had been going for three hours before Maya finally texted me: *where u at??*

I was hiding in the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the bathtub in my still-dry swimsuit, watching Tyler's expensive goldfish do lazy laps in its bowl on the counter.

"Little guy gets it," I muttered.

Outside, I could hear splash wars and laughter and someone blasting that playlist everyone pretended to like. My chest felt tight.

I hadn't always been like this. Freshman year, I was the first one in the pool, the one doing cannonballs off the roof deck (don't ask). But something had shifted over the summer. My body had changed, my confidence had evaporated, and suddenly I was hyper-aware of how I looked in a swimsuit. How my stomach rolled when I sat. How my thighs looked.

It was exhausting.

My mom kept pushing those gummy vitamins on me every morning. "For your mood," she'd say, pressing the neon orange bottle into my hand like it held the secret to happiness. But the real vitamin I needed wasn't something you could chew.

"Kai? You good in there?"

Maya. Of course.

I opened the door. She was dripping wet, chlorine curls clinging to her neck, already in her element like she'd been born at social gatherings.

"Everyone's asking about you," she said, softer than I expected. "Also, Jesse keeps eating all the pizza rolls."

I snorted. "Jesse would eat the table if it had ranch on it."

"So what's up?" Maya leaned against the doorframe, waiting. She always waited.

"I don't know," I admitted. "Just... not feeling it today. The whole performance thing."

"Performance?"

"You know." I gestured vaguely at myself. "The pretending everything's fine. The acting like I'm not aware everyone's looking. It's like I'm a goldfish in a bowl, just swimming in circles while people tap on the glass."

Maya was quiet for a second. Then she said, "You know that fish has like a seven-second memory?"

"What?"

"Tyler's goldfish. Maybe that's the vibe. Just forget everything and swim."

I stared at her. Then at the goldfish, still doing its thing, completely unbothered. Just living its fish life, not overthinking its fish existence.

"Okay," I said. "Yeah. Okay."

"Also," Maya added, "if you don't come out, I'm telling Jesse you called him hot."

"I'm coming, I'm coming."

The pool was chaos—splash fights, stolen drinks, someone's older brother making margaritas (virgin, probably). I stood at the edge for exactly three seconds before Jordan shoved me in from behind.

"JORDAN!"

But as I broke the surface, sputtering and laughing as everyone else laughed, something clicked. The water felt amazing. No one was watching my stomach. No one cared. They were just... existing.

I spent the next two hours in the pool, wrinkled fingers and hair plastered to my forehead, not overthinking a single thing. And somewhere between the third splash war and the fourth slice of cold pizza, I realized I hadn't felt this free in months.

Later that night, Maya texted me: *see? told u*

I stared at my ceiling, still smelling like chlorine, and texted back: *the fish was right all along*