The Goldfish Incident

I felt like a zombie navigating the overcrowded hallway, my brain fried from three hours of sleep and the collective social battery drain of 2,000 teenagers. My best friend Sam was practically vibrating beside me, clutching a crumpled invitation like it was a winning lottery ticket.

"Dude, Tyler's party is going to be LIT," he said, using the word lit for the third time in two minutes. "You have to come. No excuses."

I groaned. "I have baseball practice at six, then that history project due Monday—"

"Cancel it. Well, not practice, but skip the project panic. You need this. You've been radiating main character energy all week, but like, sad main character energy." Sam wasn't wrong. Ever since Lily transferred out of our AP Bio class three weeks ago, I'd been moving through life like I'd forgotten my contact lenses. Everything was slightly blurry, slightly off.

The party turned out to be exactly what I expected: too loud, too many people trying way too hard, and a suspicious amount of glitter on every surface. I was hiding in the kitchen, contemplating my life choices, when someone tapped my shoulder.

"You're Maya's brother, right?"

I turned around and there was Chloe—THE Chloe, who somehow managed to make varsity softball and academic decathlon seem equally effortless. She was holding a red solo cup and smiling like she actually wanted to talk to me.

"Yeah, that's me," I managed, trying to play it cool despite my heart suddenly staging a mosh pit performance against my ribs. "I'm Marcus."

"I know," she said, and I was about to ask what that meant when she reached out and brushed something from my teeth. "You had a massive piece of spinach stuck there. Like, embarrassingly huge."

I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole. Seriously, who goes to a high school party and eats the vegetable platter? This was it. This was how my social death would be remembered.

But then Chloe laughed, and it wasn't mean. "My grandpa always says spinach is basically a multivitamin anyway. You're just being proactive about your health."

We ended up talking for two hours about everything from our mutual hatred of standardized testing to how her goldfish had once eaten an entire cherry tomato and looked incredibly proud of itself afterward. She'd named him Baseball because she'd found him at the park near the baseball fields.

"Original name," I'd said, and she'd shoved my shoulder playfully.

"Shut up, I was seven."

When I finally got home, Maya was waiting up, scrolling on her phone with zombie-like intensity. "So," she said without looking up, "Chloe posted that you guys were talking on her story. She also mentioned your spinach incident."

I felt my face burn. "And?"

"And she thinks you're cute. You're welcome, by the way." She finally looked up, grinning. "I told her you'd be at Tyler's party. You should thank me or something."

I flopped onto my bed, staring at the ceiling, and for the first time in three weeks, I didn't feel like I was moving through life underwater. Sometimes the most embarrassing moments—the ones that make you want to dissolve into the atmosphere—end up being exactly what you need. A little social humiliation, a random conversation about a fish named Baseball, and suddenly life wasn't blurry anymore.

I grabbed my phone and typed out a text to Chloe. My hands were shaking but I pressed send anyway.

Tomorrow, I'd worry about the history project. Tonight, I was just grateful for spinach, eccentric pets, and sisters who meddled in all the right ways.