The Goldfish Monologues

I'd been **running** on two hours of sleep and three iced coffees, which definitely didn't help when I caught my reflection in the gym mirror during third period. My hair was doing whatever it wanted, but honestly? That was the least of my problems.

"Dude, you good?" Marcus asked, spinning a basketball on one finger like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Never been better," I lied, adjusting my beanie—my **hat** of choice whenever my hair decided to boycott gravity.

The real problem wasn't the hat or the hair or the fact that I was somehow failing gym despite my best efforts to become invisible. The problem was Jordan, who sat two rows ahead in English and had somehow turned answering questions about The Great Gatsby into a personality trait. Yesterday, when Mr. Henderson asked about symbolism, Jordan didn't just answer—they went full **sphinx**, posing their own riddles about eyes and green lights while half the class TikToked the whole thing.

I wanted to be that. That level of unbothered confidence, where saying something unhinged in front of thirty judgmental teenagers was just a Tuesday.

Instead, I was more like my sister's carnival prize **goldfish**, Bubbles—who famously forgot he was alive every three seconds and spent most of his time staring blankly at the plastic castle in his bowl until he didn't.

"You're overthinking again," Marcus said, because apparently my internal crisis had leaked all over my face.

"Am not."

"Bro, you literally just sighed so dramatically I felt it in my soul."

He wasn't wrong. I sighed again. "What if I talk to Jordan and immediately regret everything? What if they think I'm weird? What if—"

"What if you're just running scenarios in your head that literally haven't happened yet?" Marcus tossed me the basketball. I fumbled it. Obviously. "Also, they literally posted that BeReal of them falling up the stairs yesterday. Nobody's cool, Leo. We're all just pretending not to be terrified of existing."

I looked at Jordan across the cafeteria, currently wearing mismatched socks and aggressively eating a strawberry Pop-Tart.

Maybe Marcus had a point.

Or maybe this was just another goldfish moment and I'd forget my own courage by lunch.

Only one way to find out.