Three Seconds of Glory

The carnival lights blurred against my glasses, and I clutched the plastic bag like it contained my soul—which, technically, it kinda did. Inside swam Goldie, my prize goldfish, won after forty dollars and an ego-crushing demonstration of my zero hand-eye coordination.

"You spent forty bucks on a fish?" Maya laughed, nudging my shoulder with hers. My stomach did that thing where it forgot how to organ function. We'd been flirting at baseball practice all week—me pretending I could hit, her pretending to buy my excuses about why I kept striking out. Now here we were, Friday night, and I was carrying a literal fish in a bag while she looked like she'd stepped out of an iPhone camera roll that had already been curated and color-graded.

"It's not about the fish," I said, lying through my teeth. "It's about the principle."

"The principle of wasting money?"

"The principle of—"

Her dad's golden retriever, Buster, chose that exact moment to bolt past us, trailing his leash like a snake that had given up on life. Maya's eyes went wide. "Buster! No!"

We both lunged. I moved left, she moved right, and somewhere between us, Goldie achieved flight. The plastic bag slipped from my fingers, did this majestic slow-motion arc through the carnival lights, and landed—splat—directly onto Maya's brand new white Converse.

Dead silence. The carnival kept spinning behind us like nothing had just happened. A guy selling cotton candy stopped mid-spin.

Then Maya started laughing. Not the polite laugh she used when her dad made terrible dad jokes, but actual doubled-over, snort-laughing laughter. "Your fish," she gasped, "just assaulted my shoe."

I knelt down, somehow both dying and alive. "I'll buy you new ones. I swear."

"Don't." She wiped her shoe on the grass, still giggling. "This is the most memorable thing that's happened at this carnival since, like, forever." She looked up at me, and something in her expression shifted. "You're not like the other guys on the team. They'd be freaking out about their shoes right now."

"I am freaking out about your shoes."

"No, you're freaking out about your dignity. There's a difference." She stepped closer, lowered her voice. "Baseball game tomorrow. You coming?"

"Wouldn't miss it," I said, meaning it.

"Good." She winked. "Bring Goldie. I think he's good luck."

I watched her walk away, still grinning like an idiot. Goldie was gone, my dignity was questionable, and I'd definitely need to explain to my mom why I'd spent forty dollars on a fish that lasted exactly seventeen minutes. But somehow, walking home under those spinning lights, I felt like I'd already won everything that actually mattered.