Electric Dead Summer

The papaya sat in my backpack like a radioactive grenade. Lily Chen had mentioned she loved exotic fruit exactly once, in seventh period bio, and now here I was — carrying a tropical peace offering to the first party of sophomore year like some kind of desperate farmer.

"You're actually going?" My brother had asked from the couch, where he'd been essentially zombie-ing through summer break. "The cool kids' party?"

"Shut up, Jeremy."

"I'm just saying. You've been running mental laps about this all week."

He wasn't wrong. My social life had been approximately as active as a cemetery.

The party was already chaos when I arrived — music thumping, people crowded around the TV where a zombie marathon was blasting. Someone had spilled red solo cup contents on the carpet. I stood by the doorway for approximately three years.

Then I saw her. Lily Chen, laughing at something Matt Rivera said, her hair perfect, her everything perfect. I clutched my backpack straps like they were parachute cords.

I turned to leave, but the universe had other plans. Outside, the sky went purple. A crack of lightning split the darkness, and suddenly the power was OUT.

Screams. Laughter. Someone shouting "ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE NOW" like they'd been waiting their whole life for this moment.

In the confusion, someone bumped into me hard. My backpack flew open. The papaya rolled across the floor like a green and gold bowling ball, stopping directly at Lily Chen's converse.

The flashlight beams found it first.

"Is that..." Lily picked it up, blinking in the sudden glow of ten phone flashlights. "A papaya?"

My face burned hotter than the apocalypse outside. "I heard you liked —"

"I LOVE papaya." She grinned, and for real, her smile was like actual sunshine. "My grandma used to grow them in her backyard. Haven't had one since she passed."

We sat on the back porch together while the storm raged, eating papaya with spoons she stole from the kitchen, talking about grandmothers and how zombie movies were actually kind of profound when you thought about it, and how neither of us fit into Matt Rivera's world anyway.

"You know," she said, lightning flashing behind her like something cinematic. "You're the only person who remembered that thing I said in bio."

The papaya was gone. The party was still chaos inside. But out there on that porch, with storm-lit hair and sticky fingers, I finally stopped running away from everything I was afraid of.

Sometimes the end of the world is exactly where you need to be.