Dead Battery Walking

Maya's brain felt like a **zombie** — dead inside, barely functioning, shambling through AP Chemistry on zero sleep. Senior year was eating her alive.

"You coming to Jake's pool party?" Chloe texted. "Everyone's gonna be there."

Maya stared at her **iphone**, thumbs hovering. Jake was cute. Jake was popular. Maya was... Maya. The girl who kept to herself, the one with the perfect 4.0 GPA but zero game.

"Sure," she typed back. "Why not."

**Why not** turned out to be the worst decision she'd made all semester.

The party was chaos. Music thumping, people screaming, bodies everywhere. Maya stood by the edge of the pool, clutching her phone like a lifeline, social anxiety rising like **water** in her lungs. She couldn't swim. Couldn't do small talk. Couldn't breathe.

Then she saw it.

A carnival prize from last summer — a plastic bag containing her pet **goldfish**, Ginger, floating forgotten on a patio table. Some joke gift from Jake, something about "eating someone's pet." Maya's stomach turned.

She grabbed the bag and rushed toward the house to find a proper bowl, anything better than this —

"MAYA!" Someone shoved her from behind.

Time moved in slow motion. Her **iphone** flew from her hand. The **goldfish** bag went airborne. Both hit the pool with identical splashes.

Maya stood frozen at the edge, watching her phone sink like a stone, watching Ginger float peacefully in her plastic bag, completely oblivious.

Everyone stared.

Then someone started laughing. Then someone else. Pretty soon, the whole party was cracking up.

Maya's face burned. She wanted to disappear, to become an actual **zombie** and shamble away into the night.

But then Jake was there, jumping into the pool, surfacing with her phone in one hand and the goldfish bag in the other.

"Saved," he said, dripping wet, grinning like an idiot. "Both of them. You're welcome."

He held out her phone. Water dripped from the case. It was probably ruined.

"Your screen's cracked," he said. "But hey — Ginger's fine. Look at her, living her best life."

Maya looked at the fish, then at Jake, then at the circle of kids still watching, still smiling. Something shifted inside her chest.

"Well," she said, and for the first time all night, she actually meant it. "Guess that's one way to break the ice."

Jake laughed. "Ice? We broke everything."

Yeah, Maya thought. Yeah, they had. And somehow, that was exactly what she needed.