Poolside Apocalypse

I felt like a **zombie** walking into Skylar's pool party. June humidity in Florida does something to you—drains your soul before noon. My cousin Kai texted me three times: *don't be awkward*, *don't be awkward*, *don't be awkward*. Thanks, Kai. Really helping.

The backyard was already packed. Senors lounging on floaties, juniors pretending not to care, sophomores trying too hard. I grabbed a **papaya** sparkling water from the cooler—fancy, unlike me—and scanned for someone, anyone, to talk to.

That's when I saw Harper.

Harper Chen, who sat behind me in AP Bio. Harper Chen, who drew anime foxes in the margins of her notes and wore vintage band tees like she actually listened to them. She was standing by the deep end, looking as out of place as I felt.

My feet moved before my brain could protest. I blamed the **water** vapor rising off the pool—clearly messing with my judgment.

"Hey," I said. Smooth. Truly iconic.

She jumped like I'd startled her. "Oh, hey. You're... AP Bio guy, right?"

"Marcus," I said. "And you're the one who drew a really good **fox** on our last lab report."

Harper's eyes went wide, then she laughed—an actual laugh, not the fake one girls use when they're being polite. "You saw that?"

"Hard to miss. It had better shading than my entire report."

We spent the next hour talking about everything except why we were at this party. We bonded over hating small talk, agreed that TikTok trends had a weird half-life, and discovered we both loved that obscure zombie show from three years ago—hence the zombie joke. Harper admitted she only came because her mom made her socialize more. I told her about Kai's texts.

"You're not awkward," she said, and something in my chest did this weird flutter thing.

"You're not either."

"Wanna get out of here? There's a boba place down the street."

I nodded. We left together, zombie-mode officially deactivated, papaya sparkling water forgotten on the table behind us. Sometimes the apocalypse happens quietly—like finding someone who gets your weird references before you even have to explain them.