The Goldfish & The Hard Hat

I felt like a zombie walking through the cafeteria, my brain fried from three hours of sleep and the breakup text still burning through my phone. My blue hair—a spontaneous rebellion last weekend—hung limp and defeated.

"Nice hair, freak," Brent called out, high-fiving his friends like he'd just discovered comedy. He'd been giving me crap since sixth grade, but today? Today I had zero capacity for his nonsense.

I slumped at my usual table, alone because Leo was sick and Jenna was avoiding me post-breakup drama. That's when I noticed the sophomore kid across from me, cradling a plastic bag with a goldfish inside. The fish looked miserable, swimming in tiny, desperate circles.

"School carnival prize," the kid mumbled, catching me staring. "My parents are gonna kill me."

Something in that goldfish's hopeless little eyes spoke to me. Maybe it was the being trapped in a tiny space with no control thing.

"Give it here," I said, surprising myself. I grabbed my lucky baseball hat from my backpack—the one with the coffee stain on the brim that I swore brought me good luck on test days—and dropped it over the fish. "We're breaking this thing out."

We spent lunch behind the gym, slowly acclimating the goldfish to the water fountain's basin. Brent found us, naturally, because the universe had a sick sense of humor.

"Seriously? A fish?" He laughed, that mean little laugh that made my fists clench. "You guys are pathetic."

Something snapped. I stood up, blue hair wild, coffee-stained hat jammed on my head. "At least we're not spending our lunch making fun of people to feel better about ourselves. That's genuinely sad, Brent."

The silence that followed was actually kind of beautiful. He blinked, then walked away.

The goldfish swam a victory lap. I felt less like a zombie and more like someone who might actually be okay.