The Wednesday I Finally Woke Up

Wednesday during third period, I watched my classmates transform into a parade of the walking dead. Mr. Henderson's voice droned about cellular respiration, and I swear I saw Jenna's head actually bob forward like she'd been sedated. The zombie vibe wasn't even original anymore — we'd all been running on fumes since midterms started two weeks ago.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. Marcus: *u coming to jax's party friday?*

I stared at the screen. Parties weren't really my scene. Too many people, too much noise, too many opportunities to say something awkward and replay it on an endless mental loop for the next three years. But Marcus had been trying to get me out of the house since his breakup with Sierra in September.

The bell rang, and I followed the zombie procession to lunch. That's when I actually saw her — the new girl, Maya, sitting alone at a table by the windows. She was peeling an orange, the citrus scent cutting through the stale cafeteria air like something alive in a room full of dead things. She caught me looking and smiled, just a little, and I felt something shift in my chest like a vitamin finally hitting a system that'd been deficient forever.

I didn't go to Jax's party Friday.

Instead, I found Maya at the library during free period. She was reading something with a cover so bright it hurt. We talked for three hours about nothing and everything — about how school felt like performance art, about how we both pretended to care about things that didn't matter, about how weird it was that teenagers were expected to figure out who they were while everyone watched.

"You know what's funny?" she said, closing her book. "We spend so much time trying to fit in, we forget we're already people worth knowing."

The zombie feeling evaporated. For the first time in months, I actually felt present.

Marcus texted me Sunday: *party was lame u didnt miss anything*

I didn't respond. I was too busy making plans to help Maya with her bio project, and maybe finally figuring out who I was when nobody was watching.