The Goldfish Incident

Maya's phone buzzed in her pocket — third time in two minutes. Her best friend was blowing up her group chat with updates from Jake's party, the one everyone was going to. The one she wasn't.

"You coming?" "Please say yes." "Jake's literally asking about you."

Maya stared at her ceiling, the Froot Loop she'd dropped earlier still sitting on her nightstand like a sad orange goldfish abandoned by its owner. Being fifteen shouldn't feel this complicated.

Her dog, Buster, huffed dramatically from his spot on her bed, like he knew she was overthinking everything again.

"You're right," she told him. "I'm being such a bull in a china shop about this."

That's when her neighbor's actual bull — they had a mini farm, don't judge — started making that low rumbling sound that meant it was either hungry or about to escape. Again. Last time, the entire neighborhood had been chasing livestock through suburbia at 11 PM.

Maya's iPhone lit up with a new notification. Jake himself this time.

"Hey, really hope you can make it. Want to show you something."

Her stomach did that flip thing. Jake Matthews. The same Jake who'd sat behind her in bio since freshman year, who always borrowed her pens and somehow forgot to return them.

Buster's ears perked up. Outside, something crashed.

"No way," Maya whispered.

She bolted downstairs in her mismatched pajamas and burst through the back door. There it was — the neighbor's bull, casually munching on her mom's prize-winning petunias like they were a gourmet salad.

Her mom appeared behind her, already dialing animal control. "Not again."

What happened next was exactly the kind of chaos that only happens at 2 AM when you running on three hours of sleep and way too much teenage anxiety. Half the neighborhood ended up in Maya's backyard. Jake showed up with some other guys from the party. Somehow, between texting her friends updates about the LIVE BULL SITUATION (because obviously she was documenting this for posterity) and trying to herd a thousand-pound animal away from the flowerbed, Maya ended up pressed against Jake's side, both of them laughing so hard they could barely stand.

"So," Jake said, once the bull was safely back where it belonged. "About that thing I wanted to show you."

He pulled out his phone. A photo of a goldfish — a real one, swimming in a tiny bowl.

"My sister won him at the fair," he said. "She made me promise to find him a good home. I was thinking maybe you'd want him?"

Maya looked at Jake, really looked at him, and felt something warm and hopeful bloom in her chest. Sometimes the best nights aren't the ones you plan. They're the ones that find you when you're least expecting them, chasing escaped bulls in your pajamas, surrounded by people who make you laugh until it hurts.

"Yeah," she said. "I think I'd like that."