The Night I Stopped Being a Zombie

My hair had decided to stage a rebellion against gravity and common sense, frizzing out like I'd stuck my finger in an electrical socket. Which, obviously, was PERFECT for tonight—Jordan Hayes's house party, the social pyramid at its finest, and me at the bottom looking up at the glowing peak where the popular kids reigned.

"You coming in or what?" Maya asked, already halfway up the driveway. She'd been my best friend since kindergarten, back when the biggest problem was who got the red crayon.

"Give me a sec," I muttered, my palm sweating against the plastic solo cup I'd grabbed from my kitchen counter. Empty, but still. Props were important.

Inside, the bass thumped like a second heartbeat. The air smelled like cheap body spray and something sweet, maybe vanilla. Bodies moved like a single organism, a writhing sea of teenagers in various states of intoxication. I felt like a zombie, moving through the motions, dead inside but somehow still walking.

And then there it was. On the kitchen counter, surrounded by abandoned red cups, sat a glass bowl with a single goldfish inside, swimming in slow, deliberate circles, its orange scales catching the light from the stove hood.

"That's depressing," someone said beside me.

I jumped. It was Jordan herself, the pyramid queen, holding a cup that was definitely NOT empty. Her hair was perfect, naturally wavy and falling just right. Of course.

"It's not depressing," I said, surprising myself. "It's peaceful. Like, everyone's out here performing and it's just... swimming."

Jordan studied me for a second, then the fish. "You know my brother won him at a carnival three years ago. Named him Toast. We keep forgetting to feed him and he just. Won't. Die." She laughed, and it wasn't mean. "Honestly? Same, Toast. Same."

My palm stopped sweating.

"Your hair's cool," Jordan said suddenly. "Mine's so boring. I always wanted to try something..."

"Rebellious?" I offered.

"Exactly." She grinned, and it wasn't the queen-of-the-pyramid grin I expected. It was real. "You want some punch? It's terrible but also kind of amazing."

"Lead the way," I said, and for the first time all night, I didn't feel like a zombie at all. Just a girl at a party, standing next to another girl, while a goldfish named Toast kept swimming, indifferent to everything.