The Haunted Homecoming Disaster

I'd been awake for thirty-six hours straight between finals week and homecoming prep, shambling through the hallways like a certifiable zombie. My eyeliner was smudged, my coffee tolerance had maxed out, and somehow I'd let Maya talk me into manning the school's haunted house fundraiser.

"You'll be perfect!" she'd said. "Just stand there and look vaguely threatening."

Vaguely threatening. Right.

The auditorium had been transformed into a maze of cardboard walls and Dollar Store cobwebs. I was stationed between the Egyptian exhibit (senior history project) and the "cursed cabin" set piece. Someone's golden retriever—a service dog in training named Barnaby—had escaped his handler and was currently roaming the haunted house, tail wagging, completely ruining the vibe.

"Hey," a familiar voice called out.

I turned. Jordan. The sphinx of the junior class. Gorgeous, unreadable, currently wearing a vampire cape that was absolutely working for them. They'd been giving me mixed signals all semester—lingering after math club, sharing their AirPods with me during study hall, then ghosting for three days.

"You're not scared, are you?" Jordan asked, leaning against my cardboard pillar.

"Please," I said. "I have AP Calc tomorrow. I'm beyond fear."

Barnaby chose that moment to bound around the corner, knocking over the cardboard sphinx prop. It crashed into the junior class's trebuchet demonstration, which launched a plastic pumpkin directly into the darkness of the "bear cave" exhibit.

Something ROARED.

Something VERY REAL.

"Okay, that's not part of the setup," Jordan whispered, grabbing my hand.

We ran. Behind us, a very confused biology teacher Mr. Henderson stumbled out of the bear costume, nursing a pumpkin-shaped bruise. But in that moment of pure terror, Jordan's fingers tight around mine, everything clicked. The sleep deprivation, the chaos, the absolute disaster of a night—it was perfect.

"Zombie mode agrees with you," Jordan said later, as we sat on the gym floor sharing stolen snacks from the homecoming dance.

I laughed. "I think that's the weirdest compliment I've ever received."

They grinned. "I can work with it."