Zombie Goldfish Memorial

The pool party was, to put it mildly, a whole vibe. But also, I was definitely entering my zombie era. Fourth night in a row of staying up until 3 AM scrolling TikTok, and now here I was, floating in Jordan's above-ground pool while basically everyone else was playing beer pong on the patio. I looked like death. I felt like death. I was, for all intents and purposes, a swimming corpse.

Then Jordan appeared at the pool's edge, holding this plastic baggie like it contained the Crown Jewels or something.

"Dude," they said. "Mr. Glitters is dead."

I treaded water. "Your goldfish? The one who survived that time you forgot to feed him for three weeks?"

"He was a warrior, Maya." Jordan's face was actually devastated. I forgot how sentimental they got about things. "We need a memorial."

"Right now?"

"The circle of life waits for no one."

So there we were, two seventeen-year-olds crouched by the pool's filter, Jordan doing this whole speech about how Mr. Glitters had been there through their parents' divorce, through first loves, through basically all of high school. And I'm listening, actually listening, because something about Jordan's intensity was hitting different.

"He was more than a friend," Jordan said, voice cracking. "He was family."

I realized I'd never seen Jordan this raw. This entire school year, I'd been too caught up in my own drama to really notice what was going on with anyone else. Jordan, who always had jokes for days, who never let anything get to them—was human.

"You good?" I asked, not as a platitude but actually meaning it.

Jordan shrugged, wiping at their eyes with the back of their hand. "Honestly? No. Like, my grandma died last month and I haven't really processed it because it's easier to just, you know, keep the vibe going. But now Mr. Glitters..." They laughed through tears. "I know it's stupid. It's a goldfish."

"It's not stupid," I said. "Grief is grief, fam. You don't get to gatekeep it."

We ended up having this whole moment by the pool, just talking about everything. About how exhausting it was, pretending to have it together. About how we were all basically zombies moving through high school on autopilot, hoping nobody noticed we were all just making it up as we went.

"Friends don't lie," Jordan said eventually, leaning back against the pool ladder. "So real talk—thanks for being here."

"Always," I said, and meant it.

Later, when the party thinned out, we released Mr. Glitters into the pool's deepest end because Jordan said he'd want to go out swimming free. I know it was objectively ridiculous, but also? Kind of beautiful.

Sometimes the most random moments become the ones that matter. We spent the rest of summer hanging out, and I stopped feeling so much like a zombie. Found my people. figured out that being real with each other beats keeping the vibe going, every single time.

Mr. Glitters would've been proud.