The Goldfish in the Palm of My Hand

The party at Maya's house was supposed to be the night everything changed. Instead, I was leaning against the kitchen counter, nursing a warm soda, watching everyone else live their best lives in the pool area. Maya's parents were out of town, obviously, and somehow that freedom made everyone shimmer with possibility I couldn't quite access.

Then I saw him—the tiny goldfish swimming in what was definitely not an appropriate bowl. A oversized wine glass, really. Maya had won him at the carnival earlier that day and now he was drifting near the sink, looking as confused as I felt.

"His name is Neptune," Maya said, appearing beside me. "Want to hold him?"

Before I could process the absurdity, she'd poured some water into my cupped hands and transferred the fish. His wet, cool body moved against my palm, fins flickering. Something about holding a living thing that small, that fragile, made everything else seem ridiculous.

"He's gonna die if we don't get him back in actual water," I said, suddenly urgent.

"You care," Maya said, like she was discovering something new.

"Of course I care. It's a living thing."

"Most people would just laugh."

The sliding door opened. The popular crowd burst in, wet and loud, someone knocking into Maya. My hands jerked. Neptune went flying—or would have, if I hadn't somehow transferred him into the nearest container. The punch bowl.

Everyone stopped. The goldfish swam in the fruit punch, completely unbothered.

"Well that's one way to spike the punch," someone said, and then we were all laughing, the weirdness of it breaking something open. Maya looked at me like I'd done magic.

Later, sitting on the diving board with Neptune now properly housed in a bucket, Maya told me she'd liked how I didn't treat the fish like a joke. "You're different," she said. "In a good way."

I looked at the goldfish swimming in his temporary home, at the palm of my hand that still felt the ghost of him moving. Sometimes the things that make you weird are the things that make you real. And sometimes a fish in a punch bowl is exactly what you need to finally be seen.