The Goldfish Wake

Maya's hair looked like a bird's nest—literally. She'd spent forty-five minutes trying to perfect that messy-wave look TikTok said was effortless, but now she was running late to Jordan's house, and her curls were doing whatever they wanted. Typical.

"You're not gonna believe this," Jordan said when Maya finally burst through his front door, out of breath. "Barnaby's dead."

Maya stopped. "Your dog? No way. He was fine yesterday."

"Not Barnaby," Jordan said, looking like he was trying not to laugh. "My goldfish."

Maya stared at him. "You called me over here for a funeral? For a goldfish?"

"It's not funny! My mom made me flush him but I couldn't, so I buried him in the backyard with a proper ceremony." Jordan's voice cracked. "We had a moment, Maya. He was there when you and me got into that fight last month. He was a listener."

Maya's chest tightened. The fight. The one where Jordan had posted that photo of Maya crying after she didn't make the soccer team, captioning it "drama queen energy" because he thought it would get laughs. It did get likes—hundreds of them. Maya didn't speak to him for two weeks.

"So," Maya said slowly, "we're having a wake?"

Jordan nodded solemnly. "I ordered snacks. There's a cable connecting the TV to the speakers so we can play sad songs. I was thinking we could say a few words."

Maya looked at her best friend since fourth grade, the one person who could make her laugh until she couldn't breathe and also make her feel like the smallest person in the cafeteria, sometimes in the same day. She thought about how friendship wasn't supposed to be easy, not really. It was messy and complicated and sometimes you had to show up for goldfish funerals because that's what friends did.

"Barnaby," Maya began, then paused. Jordan was waiting. "Barnaby was a good fish. He never talked behind anyone's back. He didn't care whose Instagram got more likes. He just swam in his little castle and minded his business. More of us should be like Barnaby."

Jordan cracked a smile. "Touché."

Maya's hair was still frizzy from the bike ride over, her phone was blowing up with group chat notifications she was ignoring, and she was standing in a backyard at 4 PM on a Tuesday saying goodbye to a fish she'd met three times. But something in her chest felt lighter than it had in weeks.

"You're a good friend, Jordan," she said. "Even when you're being a total idiot."

"Right back at you," he said, and for the first time since the fight, Maya believed it.