The Orange Soda Incident

I was supposed to be a zombie. That was the role. Extra #47 in the school's production of "Zombie Prom," and I'd spent three weeks perfecting the shuffle-step and the vacant thousand-yard stare. But opening night, I wasn't thinking about zombies. I was thinking about Maya's orange hair.

Maya Chen, who sat two rows ahead of me in AP World, whose hair she'd dyed this brilliant electric orange over fall break because she said black hair felt too "conforming." I'd been spying on her Instagram stories for weeks—not in a creepy way, just the way everyone half-stalks their crush, watching her post aesthetic photos of boba shops and sunsets and thoughts she'd never say out loud.

"You're on in five," the stage manager hissed.

My hands were sweating. The real reason I'd even auditioned for this show? Because Maya was the female lead. And now I was about to shambling onto stage in green face paint while she looked on from the wings.

Then I heard it—her voice, through the crack in the curtain, talking to someone. About me.

"He's kinda cute, don't you think? With that whole quiet mysterious thing going on."

My brain short-circuited. Before I could process it, someone backstage knocked over a table of props and I heard stage director scream "GO!" and suddenly I was running—running toward the stage door instead of the stage itself, burst through it into the cool October air, face paint still half-unapplied, heart hammering like I'd just finished a cross country meet.

I found myself behind the theater, sitting against the brick wall in my zombie costume, when an orange soda appeared in my peripheral vision.

"You forgot your dramatic entrance," Maya said, dropping down beside me.

"I—"

"You heard me."

"Maybe."

She cracked open her own soda. "Well, since you're already skipping your debut as Zombie #47, wanna walk to the 7-Eleven? I heard they've got those limited-time mango-orange Slurpees."

The zombie makeup stayed smeared on my face all the way there. Some nights you don't become the person you practiced to be. Sometimes you just run toward the moment that actually matters.