The Goldfish Incident

Maya's palms were sweating so much they practically slipped right off her phone screen. Jake Anderson was actually looking at her. At HER. The girl who'd spent the entire semester building an emotional pyramid in her head with Jake at the apex and herself somewhere in the unspectacular foundation.

"Your hair looks different today," he said. "It's... cool."

Her hair. The hair she'd spent forty minutes straightening because her mom had thrown yet another vitamin supplement at her that morning claiming it would make her "shine from within." Whatever that meant. The only thing shining right now was the embarrassment radiating off her face like heat waves.

"Thanks?" It came out as a question. Why did everything come out as a question around him?

They were at Tyler's house party—the kind where parents were "away on business" and somehow everyone's older siblings showed up with suspicious-looking sodas. Maya had spent two hours psyching herself up to attend, only to spend the first hour hugging the wall like a socially anxious gecko.

Now Jake was standing in front of her, actually talking to her, and her brain had officially short-circuited.

"So," Jake said, leaning against the wall beside her, "having fun?"

"Oh yeah. Totally. Just vibing. You know how I do."

She did not, in fact, "vibe." At all.

Then she heard it. The splash.

One of Tyler's dad's expensive decorative goldfish had somehow jumped from its open tank and was now flopping dramatically on the hardwood floor, its orange scales flashing under the LED party lights.

Without thinking, Maya scooped up the fish and made a dead sprint for the tank. Jake was right beside her, somehow holding the phone flashlight like they were in some bizarre buddy cop movie.

"LEFT!" Jake shouted.

"I KNOW WHERE THE TANK IS, JAKE!"

They made it. The goldfish swam off, seemingly unimpressed by its near-death experience.

Maya and Jake stood there, breathing hard, palms sweating again, and then they were laughing. Actually laughing. Her straightened hair was probably a disaster now, her heart was hammering, and she'd just manhandled a fish, but somehow—this was better than any pyramid scheme of perfection she'd built in her head.

"You're kind of awesome, Maya," Jake said.

And for once? She didn't respond with a question.