Three Second Memory

The running track stretched before me like a really bad decision I'd already made twice. Coach Martinez was yelling something about "digging deep" and "leaving it all on the field" while I internally debated whether throwing up now or later would be less embarrassing.

"You okay, Maya?" Jenna asked, looking annoyingly perfect in her sparkling clean Nike gear. "You look kinda... existing.

"Living my best life," I muttered, which was literally not true. My life was currently 40% panic, 30% overthinking, and 30% wishing I'd chosen literally any other elective.

The problem wasn't the running itself. I could run. The problem was that everyone expected me to be GOOD at it because my older brother was a track star, and apparently athleticism was genetic now. Instead, I was just. Average. At everything.

After practice, my mom was waiting in the parking lot with the dreaded vitamin routine. She'd gone down a TikTok wellness rabbit hole and now I had to choke down these massive multivitamins that tasted like despair and artificial fruit flavor.

"Did you know deficiency causes mood swings?" she asked, handing me the pill.

"I'm not deficient, I'm just dramatically existing," I said, but took it anyway because I didn't have the emotional bandwidth for the lecture.

My room was my sanctuary, except when it wasn't. My cable had been cutting out during my shows, which was basically a crisis at this level. But the real MVP was Goldie, my actual emotional support goldfish. Jenna thought it was weird that I talked to him, but Goldie never asked why I wasn't more like Marcus, or why I didn't have my college applications ready yet.

"They say goldfish have three-second memories," I told him, watching him swim in his little castle. "Must be peaceful, right? No overthinking. No replaying conversations from three weeks ago at 2 AM. Just swimming and eating and being chill."

Goldie did not respond, which honestly made him the best conversationalist I knew.

The next day at school, something shifted. I was tired of performing. Tired of acting like I cared about track when I secretly wanted to join the gaming club. Tired of pretending I had it together when I was just winging it like everyone else.

"Hey," I said to Jenna at lunch. "I'm quitting track."

She actually stopped scrolling. "What? But you're—"

"Terrible at it? Yeah, I know. I'm gonna do gaming club instead."

Jenna stared. Then she smiled. "Finally. I've been waiting for you to admit that. Also, can you help me with this cable situation? My streaming keeps cutting out and I know you're secretly good with tech stuff."

Maybe three-second memories weren't the goal. Maybe the point was figuring out who you actually were, in this moment, and just. Swimming with it.