Three Feet Deep

The carnival goldfish — which I'd dramatically named Neptune — lasted exactly three days in the bowl on my nightstand before the inevitable flush. My mom said I had 'zero pet responsibility,' which honestly felt like a personal attack.

Fast forward to Saturday: Jordan's pool party. The one I'd been stress-planning for literally a week. I'd practiced my chill in the mirror, failed, and practiced some more. This was it — the chance to finally talk to Maya, who sat behind me in AP Bio and had laughed at my joke about mitochondria on Tuesday.

I showed up wearing my lucky beanie because 1) my hair was doing a weird flip thing, and 2) it gave me main character energy. Or at least that's what I told myself. Everyone else was in swim trunks and sunscreen smells, and there I was looking like I was about to star in an indie folk album cover.

"Dude, are you gonna swim or just stand there looking aesthetically melancholic?" Tyler called out, splashing water in my general direction.

I tugged the hat lower. "Working up to it."

Maya was already in the pool, hair slicked back, laughing at something Jordan said. My stomach did that thing where it forgets how to exist. I'd been socially swimming around her for months now — always in the deep end, never making actual contact.

Then Jordan's little sister screamed.

"THE GOLDFISH IS FLOATING!"

I looked at the patio table. Sure enough, a plastic baggy with a new carnival goldfish sat there, forgotten in the party chaos. The fish was definitely not moving.

"It's sleeping!" someone yelled.

"That's not sleeping, that's dead," Maya said, climbing out of the pool. Water dripped down her arms and I forgot how to form thoughts for a solid three seconds.

Without thinking, I grabbed the baggy. "I got this."

I marched to the pool edge, Jordan's dad's giant sun hat perched conveniently on a chair. I grabbed it — why? who knows — and plunged the whole baggy underwater.

What happened next was literally the most uncoordinated 30 seconds of my life. The hat flipped off my head. My beanie floated away like a sad orange jellyfish. I fully face-planted into the pool while still holding the fish baggy, which promptly ripped.

But the fish? The fish swam away like it had been waiting for this moment its whole life.

I surfaced, spluttering, hair everywhere, hat floating three feet away. Everyone was staring.

Then Maya started laughing. Not mean laughing — the real kind. She grabbed my beanie from the water and plopped it back on my head. "You just liberated a fish with zero regard for your own dignity."

"That's... that's how I roll," I said, which was the worst possible response.

"It was kind of epic, though," she said. And she didn't move away. "So, AP Bio. You're good at saving things that are barely alive?"

"Only on weekends."

"Good to know." She smiled, and somewhere beneath the surface, my heart was doing backflips. "Hey, you should come swimming. With us. Without the hat next time."

I took off the beanie. My hair was terrible. I didn't even care.

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