Poolside Zombies

The pool shimmered like liquid diamonds under the July sun, but I felt more like a zombie than some sparkling creature. Three hours of sleep because someone decided the Fortnite season finale was more important than basic human functioning. I'd downed a vitamin D gummy that morning, hoping for some miracle energy boost, but mostly I was just running on caffeine and teenage resilience.

"Hey! You're up next!" Sarah called from the padel court, waving a racquet like she was conducting an orchestra. I dragged myself over, my flip-flops slapping against the concrete in a sad rhythm. Padel. Because tennis wasn't enough anymore, and the country club kids needed their own exclusive sport.

"You look dead," whispered Tyler, bumping my shoulder with a grin that said he knew exactly why I was exhausted. Probably because he'd been in my Discord call until 3 AM too.

"Zombie mode activated," I muttered, grabbing a racquet. My brain felt like it was swimming through fog, but apparently I was supposed to be this athletic, put-together version of myself. The version that played sports and hung out at pool parties and didn't spend five hours every night building pixelated forts.

But then something weird happened. As I started hitting the ball, the rhythm of it woke me up. The thwack of the racquet, the way the ball bounced off the glass walls, Sarah laughing when I accidentally hit it backward. For a second, I wasn't the exhausted gamer kid trying to fit in. I was just... having fun.

"You're actually not terrible," Sarah said afterward, tossing me a Gatorade. "For a zombie."

The vitamin gummy commercial in my head said this was what being a teenager was supposed to be. But I think the real truth was somewhere between the exhausted zombie mornings and the moments when you actually forgot to perform and just started living.