The Goldfish We Couldn't Kill

The carnival goldfish was supposed to die within a week. That's what everyone said. But this one, this stubborn orange speck in a dollar-store bowl, just kept swimming like its tiny life depended on it.

Kind of like me, honestly.

I was sixteen and crushing so hard on Leo that my chest felt like it had swallowed a battery. The pool party at Jess's house was supposed to be my moment — the one where I stopped being background character energy and actually talked to him. Not, like, confessed or anything weird. Just talked.

Instead, I spent three hours hovering near the snack table, clutching my phone like it was a flotation device, while Leo laughed at something someone else said. The usual.

Then the sky ripped open.

First came the lightning — this jagged crack that turned the whole backyard strobe-light bright, like someone had taken a photo of everyone's actual face instead of their party mask. Then thunder shook the porch. Everyone screamed and scrambled toward the house like it was a horror movie and the killer had finally shown up.

That's when I saw it. The glass bowl with the goldfish, still sitting on a side table near the pool, forgotten in the chaos.

Everyone else was running toward the house, but I found myself running toward the table. The sky opened up and rain started pouring, this warm summer downpour that felt like the world was washing its hands of us, and I grabbed the bowl just as wind sent an umbrella cartwheeling past.

"What are you doing?" Leo yelled over the thunder. He'd stopped running. He was looking at me, actually looking at me, like I'd grown a second head or done something interesting for the first time in my life.

"Saving him," I said, and the goldfish did this tiny flip, like he knew.

Leo grinned, and it wasn't even annoying. "That's the most extra thing I've ever seen."

"I'm extra? You're the one wearing sunglasses. At night. During a storm."

He laughed — actually laughed — and ran over to help me. We huddled under the porch overhang, the goldfish between us, rain sheeting down so hard the pool disappeared. The lightning kept flashing, turning everything ghost-white, and my heart was doing something that wasn't anxiety, not exactly.

"Nice fish," Leo said. "What's his name?"

"Donatello."

"Of course. Hey, you want to maybe... I don't know. Hang out? Somewhere that's not literally during a natural disaster?"

The goldfish did another flip. Tiny, but triumphant.

Some fish just refuse to die. Some moments just refuse to be ordinary.

"Yeah," I said. "I'd like that."