Zombie Summer

I felt like a zombie. Not the cool Netflix kind — the actual walking dead kind, stumbling through junior year with dark circles under my eyes and my brain permanently stuck in do-not-disturb mode.

The pool party was supposed to fix that. Maya's house, with its infinity pool and fruit platter that looked like something from a magazine. I stood by the edge, clutching my iPhone like a lifeline, watching everyone else actually live their best lives.

"You gonna swim or what?" Ethan asked, splashing water my way. He was already in, doing something that looked like cannonball attempts but was mostly just him being Ethan.

"Maybe later," I said, scrolling through posts I'd already seen three times.

That's when I saw it — a goldfish, tiny and orange-red, doing laps in the shallow end like it owned the place. It had somehow escaped from one of those decorative bowls and was now absolutely thriving in Maya's chlorinated oasis.

"Is that..." I pointed.

Maya followed my gaze. "Oh my god, Bubbles! He's been missing for like three days!"

Three days. That goldfish had been living his best life in a pool full of teenagers while I'd been doom-scrolling myself into existential dread.

"You want papaya?" someone asked, shoving a piece of the orange fruit toward me. "It's actually fire."

I took it. Took a bite. It was weirdly perfect — sweet and unexpected, like finding something real in a world of filters.

My iPhone buzzed in my hand. Another notification. Another someone wanting something from me.

I looked at the goldfish, now doing what appeared to be joyful figure-eights near the drain. I looked at the papaya in my hand. I looked at everyone actually talking, laughing, existing without documenting every second.

I set my phone on a dry towel.

"Race you to the other side," I told Ethan.

I don't know if the goldfish is still in there. I don't know if Maya's mom ever figured out why her pool filter kept clogging. I do know that summer day, I stopped being a zombie and started being, like, actually alive again.

Sometimes you gotta be the goldfish in the pool. Sometimes you gotta just swim.