The Night I Stopped Running

I was running before I even stepped through the door. Running from my mom's "you'll have fun" speech, running from the way Maya had ghosted me after two weeks of flirting, running from the fact that I was seventeen and had never been to a real party.

The house thudded with bass that vibrated in my chest. Inside, kids from school clustered in groups, red Solo cups in hand, already looking like the walking dead. I spotted Jason by the kitchen—dressed as a zombie, face paint smeared, doing that lurching walk that was somehow hilarious and pathetic at the same time. Classic Jason. He'd been trying to be funny since sixth grade.

I grabbed a cup, took a sip, winced. Whatever.

"You look like you're at a funeral," someone said.

I turned. There she was. Lexi. She wore this fox ears headband that should've been cringe but somehow looked effortless. Her hair was messy in a way that took forty-five minutes to achieve.

"Just observing," I said. Smooth, Leo. Real smooth.

"Observe this." She handed me a wedge of fruit. "Papaya. My mom's obsessed. She says it's 'exotic.'" She rolled her eyes.

I took it. It was sweet, weird, unexpected. Kind of like her.

"So," she said, leaning against the counter. "You gonna bear your soul tonight, or keep pretending you're too cool for this party?"

My face burned. She'd noticed.

"I'm not pretending—"

"You are, though. You've been hovering by the door for twenty minutes. Your friends are over there." She pointed. Jason and the zombie crew had somehow formed a circle. They were laughing.

"They're not really—"

"Leo." Her voice softened. "Nobody knows what they're doing. We're all just faking it till we make it. Even the zombies." She nodded toward Jason, who was now dramatically fake-biting someone's arm. "Especially the zombies."

I laughed. I couldn't help it.

"So," she said, that fox-ear headband tilting slightly. "You coming, or you gonna keep running from everything?"

I looked at her—really looked at her. She wasn't flawless. Her eyeliner was smudged. She'd spilled something on her shirt. But she was there. She was present. She wasn't running.

I stopped running. I took another bite of papaya. It tasted like starting over.

"Yeah," I said. "I'm coming."