Neon Orange at the End of the World

The pool party was supposed to be Jenna's social resurrection. Instead, she stood by the snack table in her neon orange bikini — bright as a traffic cone against everyone's curated neutrals — feeling like the walking dead. A zombie, basically. One of those background characters who shuffles through scenes while the actual humans get plot lines.

"You okay?"

Jenna jumped. Tyler. The Tyler. The one who'd sat behind her in bio since freshman year, the one whose hair somehow looked perfect even when it was doing that intentional-messy thing. He held out a red cup.

"Just decomposing," she said, because her brain-to-mouth filter had clearly died tonight too.

Tyler laughed. Actually laughed. "Same. This party's giving zombie apocalypse energy, right?"

That's when she noticed it — the tiny gray cat sitting on the diving board like it owned the place. Its eyes glowed in the pool lights.

"Is that—"

"Barnaby," Tyler nodded. "Oliver's cat. Hates everyone but me."

*Of course.* Even the cat had favorites.

Lightning flashed somewhere beyond the backyard fence. Thunder rolled closer. Someone squealed and cannonballed into the pool.

"You know what's weird?" Tyler said suddenly. "I've been sitting behind you for two years and I just realized I don't know anything about you except your mitochondria drawings are actually kind of fire."

Jenna's face burned. Maybe literally. The orange bikini suddenly felt like too much. "They were okay. My shading was tragic."

"No, they were legit." He stepped closer. "Hey, you want to get out of here? There's this 24-hour diner that makes pancakes the size of your face."

The air between them crackled like the approaching storm. Jenna looked at the pool, at the laughing faces she didn't really know, at Oliver's gray cat now grooming itself on the diving board like it had nowhere better to be.

"Yes," she said.

They grabbed their stuff and slipped out through the side gate just as the first fat drops of rain started falling. Jenna's orange swimsuit glowed against the night-dark street. Behind them, someone screamed about the zombie game glitching on the outdoor TV.

She didn't feel like a zombie anymore. She felt alive, neon-bright and impossible to ignore, walking toward pancakes with a boy who thought her mitochondria drawings were fire.

Sometimes the apocalypse happens when you least expect it. Sometimes it's exactly what you need.