Screen Static and Thunder

Maya felt like a zombie. Not the cool, gross kind from Netflix shows—the boring, undead-on-the-inside kind that resulted from three hours of pretending to have fun at Jordan's party. She'd spent the last forty-five minutes leaning against the kitchen island, nursing a lukewarm soda she didn't even want, and doing what she did best: disappearing into plain sight.

Her iPhone buzzed in her pocket—her lifeline, her escape hatch, her entire social existence condensed into six inches of glass. She pulled it out automatically, muscle memory kicking in before her brain could protest. No new notifications. Just the same three apps she'd checked seventeen times already.

Outside, lightning cracked the sky open, illuminating the backyard through the sliding glass doors. For a split second, everything looked ghostly and strange—the pool, the scattered red cups, the cluster of popular kids she'd been avoiding all night.

Then she saw him.

Leo was standing alone by the fence, phone in hand, doing the exact same thing she was: pretending to be busy, pretending not to care, pretending his chest wasn't probably tight with that specific kind of loneliness that only hits harder when you're surrounded by people.

Another flash of lightning. Their eyes met through the glass.

Maya's zombie brain woke up.

She didn't think. She just moved—pushing off the island, crossing the kitchen, sliding the door open. The rain smelled like ozone and wet concrete, and suddenly she was standing next to him, and her phone was still in her hand, and this was either the bravest or stupidest thing she'd ever done.

"Zombie mode activated," Leo said, not looking up from his phone. "You too?"

Maya laughed, and it surprised her—how real it sounded, how not forced. "Since I walked through the door like two hours ago."

"Same." Leo finally looked at her, and his eyes were kind of warm in a way that made her stomach do this little flip thing. "I was just about to stage an emergency text escape."

"Me too," she admitted. "But this is better."

"Yeah," Leo said, and he actually smiled. "This is better."

They stood there in the rain-spattered dark as lightning kept painting the sky in flashes of purple and white, and Maya didn't feel like a zombie anymore. She felt like someone who'd just remembered how to be alive.