Dead Behind the Eyes

My mother calls them zombie vitamins—those neon gummy things she forces on me every morning, claiming they'll fix my perpetually exhausted sixteen-year-old existence. She's not entirely wrong. Between AP classes, track practice, and my secret obsession with special effects makeup, I'm basically running on caffeine and desperation.

That's how I end up behind the bleachers during Friday's baseball game, hiding under a beat-up beanie and practicing my latest zombie contouring technique on myself. I've got the hollowed-out cheekbones down, the grayish-green skin tint perfect, and I'm working on some particularly gruesome exposed-bone effects on my jaw when I hear the cough.

Jordan Torres. Star pitcher. The guy I've been lowkey crushing on since sophomore year. He's standing there in his dirt-stained uniform, holding a baseball like it's a normal thing to encounter someone who looks like the living dead behind the bleachers.

"Nice work," he says, and I freeze. My hat's practically covering my entire face at this point. "That, uh, that exposed bone? That's actually sick."

I expect him to laugh. Instead, he squats down and starts explaining how he's been watching YouTube tutorials because he wants to be a makeup artist for horror movies, but his baseball-obsessed dad would literally die.

We spend the next hour behind those bleachers while his team plays on without their star pitcher. I show him my blending technique. He shows me these incredible sketches he's done of zombie transformations. And when his coach finally yells for him to get back in the game, he pulls off his baseball cap and hands it to me.

"Trade you," he says, grinning like he knows exactly what he's doing. "For the hat. And you have to come to my house tomorrow. I've got this idea for a zombie baseball player and I need your expertise."

So maybe my mom's right about the vitamins after all. Because for the first time in forever, I don't feel dead anymore. I feel like I'm finally, actually, waking up.