The Dead Summer

I was basically a zombie. Three weeks into summer break and I'd already watched everything on Netflix, scrolled through TikTok until my thumb hurt, and developed a permanent crease in my forehead from resting it on my phone. My mom called it "depression." I called it "research for my future career as a professional hater."

"You need vitamin D," she announced, slamming a bottle of orange pills on my desk. "Go outside before you turn into a mushroom."

The irony wasn't lost on me. Mom, who'd spent the last decade working two jobs, suddenly had opinions about my vitamin intake because she read something on Facebook.

"Fine," I said, snatching the bottle. "I'll go to Maya's pool party."

I hadn't planned on going. Maya's parties were social minefields where the popular kids performed elaborate rituals I didn't understand. But anything was better than another day of staring at my ceiling fan.

When I arrived, the pool area was already packed. I spotted Maya by the deep end, holding court with a knot of girls who looked like they'd stepped out of a skincare commercial. I hovered near the snack table, clutching a soda I wasn't thirsty for, feeling like the world's most awkward NPC.

Then Caleb waved at me from the pool edge. We'd been friends in middle school before he got recruited into the jock hierarchy. I hesitated, then sat beside him, dangling my feet in the water.

"You look dead," he said, which was objectively the worst greeting in human history.

"Three weeks of doing nothing will do that to you."

He laughed. "Same. I've been at soccer camp since school ended. Coach is making us take these insane vitamin supplements. I think one of them is making my pee bright orange."

I snorted. So unexpected. So refreshingly gross.

"You should come to the arcade with me tomorrow," he said. "Unless you're too busy being a zombie."

"I'm never too busy for that."

Something shifted between us—a tiny spark, but real. As the sun dipped below the fence line, turning the pool water liquid gold, I realized Mom was wrong about one thing. It wasn't the vitamin D I needed. It was the reminder that even dead summers could come back to life.