Dead Tired and Alive

I looked like a zombie. No, seriously — after pulling an all-nighter to finish my history paper that I'd procrastinated on for three weeks, I was basically the walking dead. My mom kept shoving gummy **vitamin** packs at me like they were magical resurrection pills.

"Marcus, you look terrible," she said, handing me yet another citrus-flavored dose of artificial energy. "At least take this before school."

"Mom, I'm fine," I lied, staring at my reflection. My **hair** was doing this weird gravity-defying thing on one side, a testament to the four hours of sleep I'd managed to snatch between 4 and 8 AM.

I was about to just say screw it and wear a beanie when my cat, Luna, decided to helpfully jump onto my bathroom counter and knock over my open soda can. Because that's exactly what I needed.

"Luna, what the actual —"

I froze. My phone was blowing up. Group chat going nuts. And then I saw it: Jayden, the junior varsity **baseball** star who I'd been lowkey crushing on since September, had posted something. About me. Well, about my anonymous art account that literally nobody was supposed to know I ran.

His caption: "Whoever runs @midnight_sketches is insanely talented. Would love to collab sometime."

My hands were literally shaking. Jayden noticed my art? Jayden wanted to collab? This was simultaneously the best and most terrifying thing that had ever happened to me.

The old me would've panicked. Would've deleted the account, changed schools, maybe moved to a different country. But the zombie version of me — running on zero sleep, citrus vitamins, and pure adrenaline — had zero capacity for overthinking.

So I did it. I replied.

"Haha thanks! That would be sick."

Then I added: "It's Marcus, by the way. We have English together."

I hit send before I could talk myself out of it. My heart was doing gymnastics in my chest. Luna jumped down from the counter and head-butted my ankle like she knew something big had just happened.

My phone buzzed almost immediately.

"No way! Your art is incredible Marcus. We should talk after school tomorrow?"

I looked at myself in the mirror again. Still looked like a zombie. Still had messy hair. Still had that weird soda stain on my shirt now. But somehow, none of that mattered anymore.

Sometimes being exhausted enough to not overthink is exactly what you need.