The Goldfish Monologues

Maya's therapist said she needed to put herself out there. Whatever that meant. So here she was, at Jessica's end-of-summer rager, nursing a lukewarm soda and watching a **goldfish** circle endlessly in its bowl on the mantelpiece. Relatable king energy.

"You look like you're calculating escape routes," said a voice.

Maya turned. It was Leo—the guy from AP Bio who somehow made looking disaffected seem like an art form. His beanie was pulled low, a **hat** that had definitely seen better days. Or decades.

"Just observing the ecosystem," Maya said, gesturing vaguely. "Social dynamics are fascinating when you're not part of them."

Leo laughed. It was nice. Like, actually nice, not performative TikTok laugh nice. "Solid analysis. I'm Leo, by the way. We've been lab partners since September, and I'm pretty sure you think my name is 'that guy who almost burned down the chem lab.'"

"I mean, you DID almost burn down the chem lab."

"Fair." He leaned against the wall, his **palm** flat against the paint. "So what's your deal? You seem like you're secretly plotting something."

Maya considered deflecting, but something about his easy openness made her want to be honest. "I'm just ... working on being less terrified of everything. My therapist says exposure therapy. This is exposure."

"Well, mission accomplished. You're talking to the guy who somehow managed to get his **cat** stuck in a vending machine last year. I'm basically a cautionary tale with a face."

Maya laughed—genuinely laughed. The knot in her chest loosened. "Okay, that's gold. Tell me everything."

As they talked, the party noise faded to background. Maya learned that Leo's family ran a ranch ("I've literally been chased by a **bull**—it's not as romantic as TikTok makes it look"), that he loved trash reality TV, and that he hated parties but came anyway because "isolation builds character, but apparently so does awkward social interaction."

When Jessica's dad announced the police were coming due to noise complaints, chaos erupted. People scattered. Maya and Leo ended up on the front lawn, watching the dispersal.

"Well," Leo said, "that was ... something."

"Yeah." Maya bit her lip. "Hey, do you want to get out of here? There's this 24-hour diner—"

"Yes," he said immediately. "A thousand times yes."

As they walked toward his beat-up Honda, Maya realized her therapist might've been onto something. Sometimes putting yourself out there didn't mean becoming someone else. It meant finding the people who got your particular brand of weird.

And maybe, just maybe, that was enough.