Screen Glitch

Maya felt like a zombie. Not the cool, cinematic kind with dramatic makeup and backstory. More like the walking-dead-exhausted from scrolling through Instagram at 2 AM kind. Her thumb hovered over her iPhone screen,刷新ing her feed for the third time in five minutes.

"You good?"

Maya jumped. Leo stood there, holding two cups of boba. His palm-tree shirt was aggressively Hawaiian against the fluorescent school hallway lighting.

"Yeah. Just..." Maya shoved her phone in her pocket. "Waiting for life to start."

"Philosophical." Leo handed her a cup. "I was gonna say we could study for that bio test, but if you're busy having an existential crisis..."

Maya laughed. Her palms were sweating. Why were her palms sweating? It was just Leo. They'd been in the same homeroom since freshman year.

"Study sounds good," she said. "My brain is basically zombie mush anyway."

"Cool." He grinned. "My place? My mom's making those cookies you like."

They walked together, and Maya found herself hyper-aware of everything: the way his backpack strap sat crooked on his shoulder, how he kept glancing at her like he wanted to say something, the strange electric tension that hadn't existed before. Or maybe it had always existed and she'd been too busy staring at her iPhone to notice.

"Hey," Leo said suddenly. "You know that zombie movie marathon thing next weekend?"

"Yeah?"

"I was thinking... if you're not busy being philosophical..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "We could go together? Like, as more than studying-for-bio friends?"

Maya's heart did something genuinely concerning. She pulled out her phone, instinctively reaching for something to do with her hands. Then she stopped.

She looked at her iPhone, then at Leo, with his hopeful eyes and palm-tree shirt and the way he made her feel awake instead of zombie-tired.

She put the phone back in her pocket.

"Yeah," she said, and she meant it. "I'd like that."