The Goldfish Summer

The pool at Maya's house shimmered like something out of a music video. I stood at the edge in my Target one-piece, drowning in social anxiety. Literally drowning, except not literally, because I hadn't even gotten wet yet.

"Swimming!" someone shouted, and like a wave, everyone jumped in.

I hesitated. Summer before freshman year felt like walking into a movie where everyone else had the script. Maya, queen of everything, emerged from the water with perfect waterproof mascara. Meanwhile, I was over here still figuring out who I was supposed to be.

Suddenly—a movement along the back fence. A fox. An actual rusty-coated fox, watching us like we were the entertainment. Its amber eyes locked with mine, and I felt seen by this random wild animal more than by anyone at this party.

"Riley! You playing padel or what?" Tyler called from the mini court. Because apparently rich people needed personal padel courts in their backyards.

"In a bit," I lied, like I'd ever played padel in my life.

The fox yipped—actually yipped—and bolted into the darkness. Gone like that.

And just like that, I realized something. Everyone here was pretending too. Maya wasn't actually that confident, Tyler wasn't actually that smooth, and I wasn't actually that awkward. We were all just goldfish in increasingly elaborate bowls, swimming around and around, acting like we knew where we were going.

"Riley!" My brother Ethan, who'd graduated and left me to navigate high school alone, appeared at the gate. "Mom says pick-up at ten. You good?"

The fox sighting, the padel court, the girl I'd been friends with since kindergarten who now felt like a stranger—suddenly it all clicked. The goldfish doesn't choose the bowl. But it can choose which way to swim.

I kicked off my flip-flops.

"All good," I called back, and meant it. Then I jumped into the deep end without checking if it was deep enough.

Turns out? It was exactly deep enough.