The Night We Didn't Die

I was basically a **zombie** by Friday night—three days of finals, four energy drinks, and approximately zero hours of sleep. My GPA was hanging by a thread, and my social life had already flatlined.

"You look like actual death," Maya said, flopping onto my bed. She was my best **friend**, the kind who'd tell you when you had spinach in your teeth and then help you pick it out.

"Thanks, Maya. Really selling the senior year experience here."

She laughed, all shiny hair and impossible confidence. "That's why I'm here. We're doing something. Anything. You're not spending another night studying until your brain leaks out your ears."

My phone buzzed. Mom. AGAIN. The third time today. I silenced it—graduate school drama could wait.

Maya's eyes landed on my window. "Running away yet?"

"Maybe," I said. "Where would we even go?"

"Anywhere. Everywhere. Come on." She grabbed my hand. "Let's be impulsive. Let's make terrible decisions."

We ended up at the old playground by the elementary school, the swings creaking in the wind like they remembered a thousand nights like this. The streetlights cast everything in this weird orange glow, like we were living in a photograph someone had taken years ago.

Then I heard it—a tiny, pathetic meow from behind the slide.

A **cat**. A scrawny, terrified-looking tabby kitten with one ear that wouldn't stand up straight.

"Oh my god," Maya whispered. "We have to save it."

"Since when are you the cat lady?"

"Since RIGHT NOW. Look at his face, how can you not love that face?"

We spent the next hour **running** around the neighborhood, knocking on doors, asking if anyone had lost a kitten. No one had. By midnight, we were sitting on my front porch with the cat—Chaos, we'd named him—curled up in Maya's jacket, purring like he'd invented the concept.

"We're keeping him, aren't we?" I asked.

Maya grinned. "Obviously. He's our responsibility now. Our tiny, furry responsibility."

My phone buzzed again. Mom. I picked up this time.

"Everything okay, honey? You haven't answered all day."

"Yeah, Mom. Everything's... actually perfect."

Because suddenly it was. I wasn't a zombie anymore. I was just some kid who'd accidentally adopted a cat with her best friend on a random Tuesday night, and somehow that felt like enough.