Orange in the Gray

Maya dragged herself through the school hallway, feeling like a **zombie** after staying up until 3 AM doom-scrolling through everyone else's perfect lives. Her eyes burned, her brain felt stuffed with cotton, and honestly? She was pretty sure she was walking into a locker.

"Maya! Wait up!"

Chelsea caught her by the arm, her energy practically vibrating. "Did you see what Sarah posted? I literally can't even."

Maya nodded absently, her mind still stuck on the college application essay she'd abandoned last night. The one that was supposed to explain who she was, as if she had any clue.

**Running** start at 4:30, read the graffiti on the bathroom wall. Someone had written "EXIST LOUDLY" in orange Sharpie.

That orange color against the dull tile made something click in Maya's chest.

She'd been hiding lately. Letting her grades slip, avoiding her friends, scrolling through her phone instead of actually living. Smiling when she felt like screaming. Going through motions like she was already ghosting through her own life.

That afternoon, Maya did something she hadn't done in months. She stopped at the drugstore, bought a bottle of neon orange hair dye, and went home.

Her mom would kill her. Her dad would sigh that disappointed sigh. Her friends would think she was having a midlife crisis at seventeen.

She dyed a streak in her bathroom mirror, hands shaking, heart pounding like she was about to jump off a cliff.

When she looked at herself again, that slash of orange against her dark brown hair made her grin. A real grin. The first one in weeks.

She grabbed her running shoes and headed out, pushing herself harder than she had in months, lungs burning, legs pumping, feeling ALIVE for the first time since... she couldn't even remember.

The zombie could wait. Today, she was running toward something.