The Goldfish Operation

Maya's hair refused to cooperate—again. She'd spent forty-five minutes trying to tame the frizz into something resembling the effortless waves every other girl at Northwood High seemed to be born with. The mirror showed her a different story.

"You going to stare at yourself all day or actually come to the party?" her little brother called from the hallway.

"Shut up, Leo."

But he was right. Emma's party started in twenty minutes, and if she didn't leave now, she'd miss her chance to finally talk to Jalen. They'd been flirting over DMs for three weeks—nothing serious, just fire emojis and those 😂 reactions to everything—but tonight felt different. Tonight felt like something might actually happen.

The problem was, she'd posted a Story earlier asking her friends which outfit looked better, and Jalen hadn't viewed it. Which meant either he wasn't online (unlikely, dude lived on his phone) or he was intentionally not viewing it (even worse).

Basically, she'd been lowkey spying on his activity all afternoon like a total creep.

Lightning cracked across the sky as she grabbed her jacket. Perfect. The forecast predicted clear skies, because of course the weather app was wrong about literally everything these days.

Her phone buzzed.

EMMA: u coming??

MAYA: omw!! traffic's crazy

A complete lie. She was three blocks away.

Her hands shook as she walked up the driveway to Emma's house. The bass thudded through the walls. She could hear people laughing, someone shrieking about a drinking game (definitely not supposed to be alcohol, but whatever). Inside, it was already packed. The air smelled like cheap body spray and something sweet—vanilla cupcakes maybe.

"MAYA!" Emma appeared out of nowhere, already holding a red Solo cup. "You made it! And omg your hair looks SO good down like that."

Maya relaxed slightly. "Thanks. You look amazing too."

"Jalen's been asking about you," Emma said with this knowing little smile.

"Really?" Maya's stomach did that thing where it felt like it dropped three inches.

"No, I'm messing. But he's in the kitchen if you wanna stop being weird about it."

The kitchen. She could do this.

But when she walked in, Jalen was there, and he wasn't alone. Kelsey was leaning against the counter next to him, laughing at something he'd said, her hand practically brushing his arm. And Jalen was smiling back, actual genuine smile, not the polite one he gave everyone.

Maya's chest hurt. Actually hurt.

She turned around and walked straight back out the sliding door to the backyard, where it was quieter. Some people were sitting around the fire pit, but she found a spot on the edge of the porch, away from everyone.

"Hey."

She jumped. It was Emma's older brother, Marcus. He was holding this tiny plastic bowl with a goldfish swimming in it.

"Is that... a goldfish?"

"Yeah. Someone won it at the carnival booth and then didn't want it, so now I'm trying to figure out what to do with it." He sat down next to her. "You okay? You look like you saw a ghost or something."

"I'm fine," she said, but her voice cracked.

Marcus nodded slowly. "Right. Well, for what it's worth, Jalen's kind of dumb anyway. Kelsey's been obsessed with him since September. It's weird, honestly."

Maya snorted despite herself. "You think she actually likes him?"

"Dude, she talks about him constantly. I'm pretty sure his name is half her Instagram caption at this point." He gestured to the goldfish. "This guy has more game than Jalen, and he's a fish with a three-second memory."

Another crack of lightning lit up the backyard, closer this time. Thunder rumbled through the ground beneath them.

"You know what's funny?" Maya said. "I've been stressing about my hair, and my outfit, and what to say to him, and literally none of it mattered because he's been into Kelsey the whole time. I'm just the girl he dm'd when he was bored."

"Or," Marcus said, "you're the person who realized now instead of six months from now. That's not nothing."

The goldfish swam in a tiny circle, endlessly looping.

"You're right," she said. "I should just go home."

"Or," Marcus said again, "you could stay, hang out with people who actually want to talk to you, and eat whatever's left of those cupcakes before they disappear. Also, you want this fish? Because my mom said no pets."

Maya laughed. It felt real, for the first time all night. "I can't take a goldfish, Marcus."

"Fine. But you're staying. And you're gonna tell me everything about this hair situation you mentioned, because it took me forty minutes to get mine right today too, and nobody talks about that enough."

Inside, someone started playing that song everyone had on TikTok. The bass thumped against the back door. And for the first time all night, Maya didn't feel like she was missing anything.