The Night I Didn't Disappear

I felt like a **zombie** walking through the spring carnival—literally. Three layers of gray face paint, fake blood dripping from my temple, and I'd already moaned "braaaains" at least forty times tonight. My drama club had talked me into being the haunted house scare actor, and the worst part wasn't the makeup. It was that Maya Rodriguez was somewhere in this crowd, and she'd probably think I looked ridiculous.

My palms were sweating inside my latex gloves. Gross. I'd been crushing on Maya since seventh period English, when she'd laughed at my terrible pun about commas and I'd almost fallen out of my chair. Almost spoken to her, too. But every time I tried, my brain turned into mush and I ended up saying something completely weird.

I spotted her by the fortune teller's booth, where a neon sign flashed **PALM** READING in hot pink. Something about knowing your future seemed stupid, but I'd catch glimpses of her there between groups of friends, laughing at whatever the "mystic" told her.

Brad Miller—the guy who'd made my life miserable since sixth grade—suddenly appeared beside me. No wedgie this time. He looked different somehow.

"I'm about to do it," he said, gesturing toward the mechanical **bull** in the corner of the carnival grounds. The one that had thrown off every single person who'd tried it tonight. Brad's shoulders were tight, his jaw set.

"You?" I couldn't help myself. "Mr. I'm-Too-Cool-For-Everything?"

"Sometimes you gotta face what you're scared of." He actually cracked something resembling a smile. "Even if you look like an idiot doing it."

Someone won a **goldfish** at the booth behind us—a tiny orange thing swimming confused circles in a plastic bag. The kind of prize that ended up flushed in a week. But for now, it was alive. Moving. Something.

"You gonna stay a zombie forever, Leo?" Brad asked, catching me off guard. "Or you gonna go talk to her?"

He knew about Maya. Of course he did. Everyone knew everything in this school.

"I can't." I gestured at my face. "I'm on duty until eleven."

"Already got someone covering your shift." He checked his phone. "You've got twelve minutes before she leaves with her friends. That's, like, eight minutes of courage you need to find."

"Why are you helping me?"

"Because I saw how you looked at her today in class." He shrugged, then cracked his knuckles and headed toward the bull. "And because someone showed me something once—about not letting being scared keep you small."

I washed the zombie makeup off in the carnival bathroom. My hands were shaking but not as much as before. When I reached the palm reading booth, Maya was there alone, waiting for her friends.

"Leo?" She grinned. "You look... less dead than earlier."

"Yeah, I, um..." My brain went blank for a second. Then I remembered Brad facing that mechanical bull. "I wanted to see if my future included actually talking to you."

Maya's smile got real. "Better late than never, **zombie** boy."

Her friends never showed that night. We talked until the carnival lights flickered off, about nothing and everything. And somewhere in the middle of it, I stopped feeling invisible and started feeling like someone who might actually have a story worth living.