The Zombie Who Saw It All

I was basically a zombie by third period, having stayed up until 3 AM doomscrolling through Maya's Instagram stories. My hair was doing this weird static-frizz thing that made me look like I'd stuck a fork in an electrical outlet, which was exactly the vibe I needed when Luke accidentally knocked into my tray in the cafeteria.

"My bad, Zombie," he cracked, because apparently my exhausted stare was now my defining personality trait. His friends snorted like it was the funniest thing ever.

I should've been annoyed, but then I spotted Chloe by the trash cans, crouched behind a pillar like she was some kind of spy. Her red hair was pulled into that messy bun she always did when she was concentrating on something important. We'd barely spoken since the middle school drama went down, but something about the way she kept glancing between her phone and the senior table made me pause.

A fox darted past the windows—actual wildlife in the middle of campus. I blinked, wondering if I was hallucinating from sleep deprivation. But no one else noticed. They were all too busy performing their little social dances, too caught up in who was dating who and who'd been caught talking smack about whose bestie.

Then lightning cracked across the sky, even though it was perfectly sunny outside. The cafeteria went silent for like three seconds before everyone went back to their conversations.

"Did you see that?" I asked Chloe when I ended up next to her at the vending machines later.

She looked up, startled. "The lightning? Yeah. Weird, right?"

"No, I mean—" I gestured vaguely. "Everything."

She cracked this tiny smile. "I saw how Luke was actually looking at you when he made that joke."

I rolled my eyes but felt my face heating up. "Please. He was just being—"

"Awkward," she finished. "But also kind of paying attention."

We stood there for a moment, two former friends wrapped in all this unspoken everything, and I realized that maybe being the zombie who saw it all wasn't the worst thing. At least I was finally looking at the right parts of the story.