Three Second Memory Like Me

I was basically a **zombie** by third period—dead inside, shuffling through hallways, surviving on three hours of sleep and an iced coffee that was melting faster than my will to exist. Junior year was eating me alive.

"You look rough," said Riley, sliding into the seat beside me. She was the only person who still talked to me after the incident at homecoming, which we don't talk about because I literally blacked out most of it anyway.

"Your mom gave you those again?" She pointed at my hand, where I was crushing another one of those massive **vitamin** D supplements she'd read about on some wellness blog. Now she was convinced I was deficient and that's why I was tired all the time, not the fact that I stayed up until 3am scrolling through photos of **Fox** Chen's Instagram.

Fox Chen. The human equivalent of effortlessly cool. Smart, sharp, somehow always knew exactly what to say. Cunning like, well, you know. A **fox**.

"I'm fine," I lied. "Just tired."

Riley looked at me with those eyes that knew everything. "You know that myth about goldfish? How people think they have a three-second memory so they never get bored of swimming in the same tiny circle?"

"Yeah?"

"That's us," she said quietly. "Swimming in circles, forgetting how miserable we were five seconds ago, just doing it again. Like **goldfish** in a bowl we can't escape."

The bell rang. Fox walked past our table, laughing at something someone said, not even looking at me. I swallowed the vitamin dry. It tasted like artificial peach and desperation.

Maybe Riley was right. Maybe I was just swimming in circles, forgetting nothing ever changed, except my GPA and my slowly deteriorating mental health. But tomorrow I'd wake up and do it all again, because that's what goldfish do.

And goldfish don't get to choose their bowls.