Poolside Zombies & The Running Vitamin

I felt like a literal **zombie** that July. Between summer school, my mom's obsession with my 'potential,' and the fact that I'd been waking up at 6 AM for track conditioning, my entire existence had become a groaning, shuffling mess. The only thing keeping me going was the promise of Jessica's **pool** party on Saturday.

"You're taking your **vitamin**," Mom announced at breakfast, sliding that orange horse pill across the counter like it was some kind of magical solution to my teenage angst. "It'll help with energy. For running." She said the word with such reverence, as if **running** wasn't basically torture disguised as character building.

I swallowed the vitamin without argument because I had bigger battles to fight—like what to wear to Jessica's. The social hierarchy of freshman year had already begun forming like a bacteria culture, and I was determined not to be at the bottom of the petri dish.

The party was exactly what I'd built it up to be: chlorine and coconut sunscreen, people pretending to be chill while secretly evaluating everyone else's swimsuits. I stood by the deep end, clutching my towel like a security blanket, watching Jessica laugh at something Tyler said. Tyler, who was effortlessly tan and had that annoying natural athletic thing going on.

Then I saw her—Maya, from my English class, sitting alone on a lounge chair, reading. Like, actually reading, at a pool party. Either she was fearless or she'd given zero cares about the social ecosystem. Something about her calm confidence made me feel less like a zombie and more like... I don't know, a person?

"I'm about to jump in," I announced to no one. "Like, actually swim."

Maya looked up, sunglasses sliding down her nose. "Cool. Don't drown."

"I'm on the track team," I said, immediately regretting how defensive it sounded. "I have stamina."

"Nice. I'm Maya."

"Liam."

We sat there for an hour, talking about everything and nothing while our toes dangled in the water. She told me she pretended to read at parties because it was a fantastic social filter—anyone worth talking to would ask what she was reading, everyone else would leave her alone. Genius level 5000 IQ move.

"You're not like a zombie anymore," she said as we watched Tyler do a cannonball that displaced half the pool's water onto some unsuspecting sophomores.

"Did I look like one?"

"You had the vibe."

We exchanged Snapchats. I walked home feeling lighter, like maybe I didn't need to perform everything so hard. Maybe I could just... exist. The vitamin probably didn't hurt either.

Monday morning at 6 AM, when Coach blew that whistle for suicides across the track, I didn't even feel like dying. Just Maya's voice in my head: You had the vibe.

I started running. And for the first time all summer, I felt actually alive.