The Zombie in Room 204

I walked into third period feeling like a straight-up zombie. Three hours of scrolling my iPhone until 2 AM will do that to you. My goldfish-crush on Maya had officially become a problem—staring at her posts was practically my cardio.

Coach Miller slapped a baseball schedule on my desk. "Tryouts, Friday. Don't make me come find you."

I groaned. Last season I'd been decent, but now everything felt different. Freshman year hit different—suddenly everyone had these locked-in friend groups and I was just floating between them like my sister's goldfish, Bubbles, in her tiny bowl.

At lunch, Maya sat three tables away. I watched her laugh at something Carlos said. My cat, Whiskers, had more game than I did, and she literally slept 18 hours a day.

"You're staring again," Kayla said, sliding into the seat across from me. "It's giving obsessive."

"It's not obsessive, it's... research," I lied. Kayla's eyebrows said everything she wasn't saying.

My iPhone buzzed. Unknown number. weird.

"Hey, it's Maya. Carlos said you might want to try out for the baseball team? I'm thinking of managing this year if we get enough people."

I almost dropped my phone. Kayla practically choked on her sandwich.

"Dude," she whisper-yelled. "That's literally your in. You better not fumble this."

That night, I couldn't sleep. The zombie feeling was gone, replaced by something electric. I practiced my swing in the backyard at midnight, Whiskers watching judgmentally from the porch. Even Bubbles seemed more interested than usual, though that might have been the light reflecting off her bowl.

Friday came. I crushed it at tryouts. And when Maya showed up with a clipboard and that half-smile that made my brain glitch, I knew I wasn't invisible anymore.

"Nice swing, zombie," she said.

I laughed. "I prefer the term 'undead and thriving.'"

She shook her head, but she was smiling for real now. "We'll work on your material."