The Zombie Who Wore the Fox

Marcus felt like a **zombie**. Not the cool, Netflix kind with dramatic plotlines and surviving against impossible odds. No, he was the homework-deprived, social-battery-drained, walking-through-high-school-on-autopilot kind. Which was exactly why he was currently hiding in the bathroom at Tyler's house party, staring at his reflection in the mirror like it might reveal the secret to being actually normal.

"You good, bro?" Tyler asked, pushing through the door like he owned the place (which, technically, he did). "You've been in here forever. People are gonna think you're having a crisis or something."

"I'm fine," Marcus lied, adjusting the **orange** beanie his mom had forced on him earlier because "it's cold out there, honey, you'll catch your death." The color was wrong - too bright, too noticeable. Everything about tonight felt wrong.

"Dude." Tyler leaned against the sink, checking his own hair. "You gotta **bear** with me here, but you're being weird. Just come out. Talk to people. It's not rocket science."

Marcus snorted. "Easy for you to say. You're not the one who transferred here three weeks into junior year and still eats lunch in the library."

"First of all," Tyler said, "the library is a power move. Second, there's someone out there asking about you."

"Who?"

"That girl in the fox **hat**," Tyler said, like this explained everything. "She's been looking for you all night. Said something about your English presentation yesterday?"

Marcus's stomach did something embarrassing. Fox Hat Girl was... well, she was everything he wasn't. Confident, loud, probably had her life together. The kind of person who didn't hide in bathrooms at parties.

"She's looking for me?"

"Yeah, man. Said you were totally **fox** for doing that presentation on zombie movies when everyone else picked boring stuff." Tyler grinned. "So you gonna stay in here being a zombie, or you gonna come talk to the actual human who thinks you're cool?"

Marcus looked at himself one last time. Orange beanie, nervous expression, teenager who felt like he was messing up basically everything. Maybe that was okay. Maybe the right kind of weird was exactly what someone out there was looking for.

"I'm coming," he said, and followed Tyler into the noise, toward the girl in the fox hat who somehow thought he was worth finding.