The Zombie Followed Me Home

At 2:47 AM, I'm officially a **zombie**. Not the cool, brain-eating kind from movies, but the terrifying real version: a sixteen-year-old who hasn't slept since Friday because my ex-bestfriend keeps posting Instagram stories that I *must* immediately analyze for hidden meanings about why she ditched me for the volleyball team.

I'm deep in the algorithm trenches, **spy** mode fully activated, when my phone slips from my sweaty hands. It hits my forehead with a solid THUD. Waterworks immediately. Not actual tears—that would require emotional energy I don't possess. Just my eyes leaking from the sheer exhaustion of being a girl who checks her ex-bestie's follower count like it's a stock market crash.

"You good?" My little sister Maya appears in my doorway. She's twelve and has a full eight hours of sleep on me, the traitor. "You look like you died three days ago."

"I'm conducting research," I say, wiping my face with the back of my hand. "It's called friendship archaeology."

"You look like a **zombie** from that TikTok trend," she says, then pauses. "Wait, did you even drink anything today?"

I blink. When did I last have **water**? Thursday? Friday? I've been surviving on Diet Coke and anxiety.

"Whatever." I grab my phone. "Chloe just posted a picture of boba. Is it subtweeting me? I hate boba. She knows I hate boba. Is this a declaration of war?"

"You literally love boba."

"NOT THE POINT."

The truth is, I've been **spy**ing on Chloe's socials since our friendship autopsy three weeks ago, and I'm starting to feel like that creepy person in movies who watches someone through binoculars. Except instead of binoculars, it's Instagram. And instead of a house, it's her carefully curated post-middle-school reinvention.

Maya sighs, the long-suffering exhale of a sibling dealing with an idiot. "You need to sleep. And drink actual **water**. And maybe accept that sometimes people just... drift apart?"

"We didn't drift," I snap. "She was poached. By volleyball. By Brittani. By the dark side."

"Okay, Darth Vader." She tosses a water bottle at me. It hits my chest. "Drink that. Then sleep. Before you actually turn into a **zombie** and start eating brains."

I catch the bottle. The **water** is lukewarm and tastes like nothing, which feels appropriate. My phone screen glows with another notification. Chloe's live. Of course she's live. At 3 AM.

I watch the view count climb. Forty-seven. Sixty-two. A hundred. People are watching her exist without me, and it hurts more than it should.

My thumb hovers over the viewer list. What if I **spy** a little more? What if—

Maya reaches over and snatches my phone. "Nope. Sleeping now. Being a normal teenager tomorrow."

"Hey—"

"Sleep, **zombie**. Or I'm telling Mom you've been up for 48 hours straight again."

I groan but close my eyes. For the first time in three weeks, I don't check Instagram before drifting off. The **water** bottle sits on my nightstand. The **spy**ing can wait.

Maybe some friendships are like stars. Bright, beautiful, and eventually... you just stop seeing them when the sun comes out.