Three Feet Deep

The red plastic cup warmed against my palm, condensation slicking my fingers. Just water. I'd been nursing it for forty-five minutes because unlike everyone else at Maya's party, I wasn't trying to get buzzed on cheap vodka.

"You gonna actually drink that, or just stare at it?" Caleb appeared beside me, all easy confidence and Snap-streaks. He'd played varsity since freshman year. He belonged here.

I shrugged, wishing I could dissolve into the basement's patterned carpet like a fizzed-out vitamin tablet. "Not really feeling it."

"Your loss." He moved on to someone more interesting.

My phone buzzed. Mom again: *Did you take your vitamins??*

I'd forgotten. Again. The B-complex ones she'd started me on after the "incident" at school—when I'd fainted in the cafeteria because I hadn't eaten in two days. Now she tracked my supplements like they were controlled substances. Like she could fix me with orange gel capsules and minerals.

I slipped outside to the backyard, where the air was cooler and nobody was watching. Maya's family had this weird pond thing with a **water** feature, a little fountain that burbled like it was trying to say something important.

Something orange flashed in the shallow end.

I crouched. A **goldfish**—just one, all alone in a pond way too big for it. It kept swimming in tight circles, like it was trying to find something it had lost.

"Same," I whispered.

The fish surfaced, its mouth opening and closing like it was gasping for answers.

I checked my phone again. Mom's text still glowed there, demanding and worried and everything I couldn't handle right now. I pulled the bottle of **vitamin** pills from my pocket, dry-swallowed two without water, and watched the goldfish complete another circle.

"Hey."

I jumped. Maya stood there, holding her own cup. "You okay out here?"

I looked at the goldfish, still circling. Still alone. Still trying.

"Yeah," I said, and for the first time all night, it wasn't completely a lie. "Actually, yeah."

She sat beside me, and we watched the fish swim together, two people who didn't quite fit in, sharing space by the water while the party roared inside.