Zombie Arm and the Strikeout

Marcus's arm felt like a **zombie** limb—dead weight, barely functional. He blamed the twelve-hour **cable** TV marathon from Friday night. Three seasons of that apocalypse show, and now his fastball was moving with all the urgency of the actual undead.

"Dude, you look dead," said Jamal from the bench, crunching on something green and leafy. Marcus's stomach did a backflip. Spinach. From the concession stand. The grossest thing on earth.

"Shut up," Marcus muttered, adjusting his cap. Their **baseball** coach was already giving him the side-eye, and that was before he'd thrown a single pitch.

The problem wasn't just his zombie arm. It was Maya—head cheerleader, straight-A student, probably never watched cable marathons or ate concession stand spinach in her life. And she was sitting right behind home plate, wearing his jersey.

His jersey.

Marcus's brain short-circuited. He'd spent four months building up the courage to ask her to wear it. She'd actually said yes. And now he was about to humiliate himself in front of the entire school, living out some nightmare scenario where the cool kid unravels in real time.

"You got this," Maya called out, and her voice carried over the field chatter.

Marcus wound up and threw. The ball sailed somewhere toward the backstop. The entire baseball team groaned in unison.

But Maya didn't laugh. She didn't even look disappointed. She just smiled, like she knew something he didn't.

"Your form's all tight," she said afterward, finding him by the dugout. "You're overthinking it. My brother does the same thing before big games. You need to chill."

She held out a bag of spinach and artichoke chips. "Want some? They're actually fire."

Marcus stared at her—this perfect girl who apparently watched baseball strategy videos and ate weird healthy snacks and wore his jersey even when he couldn't pitch straight.

"Yeah," he said, taking a chip. "Yeah, I do."

His arm still felt like zombie meat, but suddenly Marcus didn't care. Some strikeouts were worth it.