The Day I Finally Woke Up

I'd been a **zombie** for three months—since Mom left, since Dad stopped looking at me like I was his daughter and started seeing me as another obligation. Wake up, school, practice, homework, sleep. Repeat. The **cable** of expectations tethered me to a routine I couldn't escape.

Then I saw her at the **padel** courts.

Mia. She'd transferred to our school last week, all vibrant energy and chaos in a hallway of walking dead. She wore this oversized **orange** sweatshirt that somehow made her green eyes pop, and she moved like gravity was just a suggestion.

"You're staring," she said, bouncing a ball off her racket.

"I'm observing," I countered, because that's what you do when you're terrified. "Your form's terrible."

Her laugh was like breaking glass—sharp, unexpected, impossible to ignore. "Then fix it, genius."

So I did. We played until sunset painted everything gold and my arms burned. For the first time since everything fell apart, I wasn't going through motions. I was actually *there*—the squeak of sneakers on court, the rhythm of the ball, Mia's competitive grin every time she scored a point.

"You're not half bad," she said afterward, sitting beside me on the bench as we caught our breath.

"You're terrible at compliments."

"I'm not wrong." She bumped my shoulder. "You should come back tomorrow. Same time?"

I nodded, something unfurling in my chest that had been clenched tight for too long. Walking home, I found myself **running** the last three blocks just because I could—because for the first time in forever, I actually wanted to get somewhere.

That night, I texted Mia: "Tomorrow?"

She replied instantly: "Bring your A game, zombie."

I laughed. For the first time in months, I didn't feel like the walking dead anymore. I was waking up.