The Goldfish Protocol

Maya stood behind the snack table at Tyler's house party, executing what she called the Goldfish Protocol: stay small, blend in, don't draw attention to yourself. Like her sister's carnival prize that kept forgetting it existed every three seconds, Maya believed if she stayed invisible, nobody would notice she'd been hovering by the Doritos for forty-five minutes.

Her phone buzzed. Mom, checking in. Maya shot back a quick text—she was fine, totally having fun, not currently feeling like a CIA operative whose cover was about to be blown any second. Being sixteen sometimes felt like operating undercover in a foreign country where everyone else had received the cultural training packet and she'd skipped class that day.

She missed Buster, her idiot dog who would never put her in this situation. Buster didn't care about social hierarchies or who was dating who or whether Maya had said "literally" twice in one sentence again. Buster just wanted belly rubs and to occasionally bark at nothing.

"Hey."

Maya jumped, knocking over a bowl of vitamin gummies Tyler's mom had put out for some reason. The boy from her English class—what was his name, Alex?—helped her pick them up.

"Nice reflexes," he said. "You move like a spy."

"What? No. I'm just—clumsy." Maya felt her face burning. Great. Now she'd be known as Clumsy Vitamin Girl.

"No, seriously." Alex grinned. "You're always so quiet in class, like you're observing everything. Taking notes. Like a sphinx, guarding its secrets."

"A sphinx," Maya repeated. "Because that's normal teenage behavior."

"Hey, sphinxes are cool. They don't let anyone in until you solve their riddle." Alex leaned closer. "So what's yours?"

"My what?"

"Your riddle. Everyone's got one." He gestured around the room. "Tyler acts tough but he's afraid his mom will catch him vaping. Jenna acts like she doesn't care what anyone thinks, but she checks her reflection every time she walks past a mirror. And you..." He paused. "You act like you don't want to be here, but you've been watching people all night like you're trying to figure out the rules to a game everyone else already knows."

Maya stared at him. Buster would've barked at this point. The carnival goldfish would've forgotten the conversation immediately.

"Maybe," she said slowly, "I'm just trying to survive my first high school party without humiliating myself."

Alex laughed. "Well, you knocked over the vitamins. That's pretty much a rite of passage. Welcome to the club."

And for the first time all night, Maya didn't feel like a spy in enemy territory. She just felt like a sixteen-year-old at a party, awkward and alive and finally part of the game.