Orange Tape at the Finish Line

The social pyramid at Northwood High was simple: varsity athletes at the top, then the AP kids, then everyone else just trying not to become a zombie before third period. I'd been operating on four hours of sleep since finals week started, my eyes burning like I'd rubbed sand in them.

"You coming to the color run tomorrow?" Maya asked, popping up beside my locker. She had this way of materializing out of nowhere, like she'd mastered some teleportation skill I hadn't unlocked yet.

"Probably not," I muttered, trying to look busy organizing textbooks I wasn't actually reading. "Not really my scene."

"Lame." She grinned, and I hated how my stomach did that annoying flutter thing. "Everyone's gonna be there. Even Tyler."

She said his name like it was supposed to mean something. Which, unfortunately, it did. Tyler Chen had been occupying way too much space in my brain since homecoming, when he'd helped me pick up my dropped tray in the cafeteria and hadn't even laughed at my ridiculous lunch (an orange, a granola bar, and shame).

So there I was at 7 AM on a Saturday, standing in a sea of people wearing pristine white shirts that were about to become Abstract Art. The color run was a 5K where volunteers threw colored powder at you at every kilometer mark. By the end, you looked like you'd lost a fight with a rainbow.

The first station was orange. I was running—or more accurately, speed-walking and trying to look like I wasn't dying—when Tyler appeared beside me, looking unfairly fresh even though we were halfway through.

"Hey," he said, breathless but smiling. "You hanging in there?"

"Barely," I admitted. "I'm regretting every life choice that led to this moment."

He laughed, and I tried to ignore how my heart did that thing again. We ran together for a while, not saying much, just breathing and existing in this weird bubble where the social pyramid didn't exist. Just two people getting covered in orange powder, shoulders occasionally brushing, me trying to act normal while internally screaming.

"You know," he said suddenly, as we approached the final stretch, "I've been wanting to talk to you for a while. You always seem like you're in your own world. It's... kinda cool."

I almost tripped. "I think that's the nicest way anyone's ever said I'm weird."

"Weird's good," he said. "Weird's interesting."

We crossed the finish line together, covered in every color of the spectrum, feeling like zombies but in the best way possible. Maya found me later, covered in pink and green, wiggling her eyebrows like the absolute troll she was.

"So," she said, "did you talk to him?"

I looked across the crowd, where Tyler was laughing with his friends, but he kept glancing back at me. "Maybe."

"And?"

"And," I said, pulling out my phone, already drafting a text I'd send once I stopped feeling like I'd run a marathon, "I think I might be done being invisible."