What the Goldfish Knew

The goldfish had outlived three boyfriends, two jobs, and Julia's belief that anything good could last. It floated now in its cloudy bowl, orange scales dimming like a forgotten promise. She watched it while swallowing her morning vitamin D — the only pill she still took, since she'd given up on the others somewhere between thirty-five and the realization that some things can't be supplemented.

"You still here?" she asked the fish. It didn't answer. It never had, but she'd been telling it things since the divorce, back when the apartment felt too large and her tears felt too small.

Her phone buzzed. Mark, asking if she wanted to come over later. Mark was nice — the kind of nice that felt like a vitamin itself: good for you, probably necessary, but somehow never satisfying. She'd been seeing him for six months, long enough that he kept a toothbrush at her place, short enough that she still didn't know if he preferred her with or without the shield she'd built.

"The bear," her therapist called it. The part of her that hibernated through hurt and emerged ravenous, dangerous to everyone around it. She'd thought she'd tamed it years ago, but lately she'd been feeling the gnaw again, the hollow ache that wanted to consume and be consumed.

She dropped the vitamin into the fishbowl by mistake. The orange pill drifted down beside the orange fish, a twin floating in false warmth.

"Shit."

She fished it out with her finger, the water cold against her skin. The goldfish watched her with that terrible wisdom of creatures who know they're captive and choose to swim anyway. What did it know about survival? About existing in glass while pretending to be free?

Mark's text glowed on the counter. She thought about her bear, about the fish, about the way she'd been taking that same vitamin for seven years because someone once told her it would help with seasonal depression, and even though the seasons had changed a dozen times since, she'd never stopped.

She typed back: Not tonight. Then added: I need to figure some things out.

The goldfish swam to the surface, mouth opening and closing in that endless, silent prayer. Julia watched it and realized: the bear had never left. It had just learned to sleep through the winters, waiting. And for the first time, she thought maybe she was ready to wake it up.