Poolside Zombie Apocalypse

The backyard glowed with string lights and the bass from someone's phone playlist thumped against the fence. I stood by the snack table, nursing a warm **water** bottle and feeling like a total **zombie** — Friday finals had drained my soul, but somehow Maya had convinced me to come to her party anyway.

"You good?" appeared on my phone. Leo. The boy I'd been lowkey obsessing over since September.

"Yeah just socially vibing," I typed back, lying through my teeth.

Across the pool, a group of varsity guys were doing cannonballs. Someone knocked over a bowl of fruit, sending **papaya** slices skidding across the concrete like orange frisbees. I watched Sophie — Maya's older sister and the most effortlessly cool human on earth — bend down to clean it up in her perfect bikini, while I stood there in my one-piece that my mom said was "age-appropriate" and wished I could dissolve into the patio.

Leo appeared beside me, smelling like chlorine and something expensive. "Hey, you wanna see something messed up?"

Before I could answer, he pulled me toward the side of the pool where a lone **goldfish** swam in tight, frantic circles. "Someone won it at the carnival yesterday and just... left it here. Been swimming in this tiny circle ever since."

The fish kept darting, trapped in its own repetitive loop. And suddenly I got it — that was me. Circling the same social patterns, too scared to break into open water, letting my anxiety dictate my movements while everyone else actually *lived*.

"We should let it go in the pond," I said, surprising myself. "My cousin has one, like, two streets over."

Leo's eyes lit up. "Let's do it."

We sneaked out with the fish bowl, running through the humid night air, hearts pounding. At the pond, we watched the goldfish dart away into dark freedom, and something in my chest loosened.

"Thanks," Leo said, bumping my shoulder with his. "For helping."

"Yeah," I managed, as we walked back toward the noise and light and terrifying possibility of everything that could happen next. "No problem."