Friday Night Zombie

Maya stood in front of her mirror, adjusting her dad's old fedora **hat**. The brim was slightly bent, but it gave her zombie costume a weird kind of elegance. Not that anyone would notice. Tonight was Alex's Halloween party, and Maya had spent three overanalyzing every possible social scenario.

Her rescue chihuahua, Peanut, wagged his tail at her feet. "You're lucky, **dog**," she sighed, kneeling to scratch behind his ears. "Nobody expects you to be cool."

Her phone buzzed. *You coming?* from Sarah. Maya's stomach did that familiar flip-flop thing. She grabbed the container of **spinach** artichoke dip her mom had made—contribution to the party, also excuse to leave early if needed.

The party was already in full swing when she arrived. People in various states of costume transformation roamed through Alex's basement. Maya spotted Sarah immediately, dressed as some kind of vampire nurse. "Maya!" Sarah waved her over. "Finally. I've been literally dying here."

The next hour passed in a blur. Maya circulated, made small talk, pretended to laugh at jokes she didn't catch. She felt like a **zombie**—just going through the motions, dead inside but somehow still moving. Why was this so hard for other people? The effortless way Sarah leaned against walls, the confident laugh Chloe used when talking to boys. Maya felt like she was constantly missing some social instruction manual everyone else had received.

Then came the spinach incident.

She'd taken a chip, scooped up dip, started talking to Ryan (Ryan, who she'd been lowkey obsessed with since September), and then—then she saw it reflected in his eyes. A perfect green fleck of spinach stuck right between her front teeth.

"Oh my god," she whispered, ready to evaporate on the spot. "I'll be right back."

She bolted to the bathroom, hat slipping sideways. Stared at herself in the mirror. Green teeth. Zombie costume. Social anxiety. The whole package.

"Maya?" It was Chloe, of all people. "You okay?"

Maya practically died. "Yeah. Just. Spinach. In my teeth. While talking to Ryan. So I'm dead now."

Chloe laughed, but not meanly. "Dude, that happened to me last year at homecoming. While wearing braces. I still cringe about it."

"Really?"

"Literally everyone has a spinach story." Chloe leaned against the doorframe. "You coming back out? Ryan's still asking about you."

Maya blinked. "He is?"

"Yeah. I think he was gonna ask for your Insta before the spinach situation went down." Chloe smirked. "Also, sick hat."

Maya readjusted the fedora. Something inside her unclenched. Maybe she didn't have to perform perfectly. Maybe being a socially awkward zombie with spinach in her teeth was just part of the whole teenage experience.

"Yeah," Maya said. "Yeah, I'm coming back out."

Peanut was waiting when she got home, tail thumping against his crate. Maya pulled off the hat, smiled at her reflection. Green teeth or not, she'd survived. And Ryan had followed her on Instagram. That counted as a win.