Zombie at the Deep End

The chlorine stung my nose before I even walked through the gate. Maya's pool party. The event of the season, apparently. I'd spent forty-five minutes obsessing over my hair, only to throw on my dad's old baseball hat at the last second because I couldn't deal with the humidity frizz situation.

"Marcus!" Maya waved from the pool, surrounded by half the sophomore class. "Get in here!"

I'd been moving through the week like a zombie — three hours of sleep each night, finals brain, parents fighting about money again. Standing there in my board shorts and oversized hat, I felt exactly like the walking dead. Everyone else seemed so alive, so effortlessly cool, while I was just existing.

Then I saw Chloe. She was sitting alone on the edge of the hot tub, scrolling through her phone with that concentrated expression she always had in AP Bio. My chest did that stupid fluttery thing it always did when she was near.

I walked over, trying to act casual instead of terrified. "Hey."

She looked up, and for a second, I thought she'd blow me off. Instead, she smiled. "Hey, Marcus. Nice hat."

"It's vintage," I said, like that meant anything. "My dad's."

"I like it." She set down her phone. "I feel like a zombie today too. Finals killed me."

We talked for twenty minutes about nothing and everything — bio homework, how weird it was that everyone was suddenly obsessed with TikTok, our mutual hatred of cafeteria pizza. The noise of the party faded into the background.

Then some junior guy cannonballed into the hot tub, sending a wave of water straight at us. I jumped in front of Chloe to block it, but my hat flew off into the churning water.

Before I could process my embarrassment, Chloe reached in and fished it out, dripping wet. She laughed as she handed it back, water droplets sliding down her arm.

"You saved me," she said, not talking about the water anymore.

I put the soggy hat back on. "Yeah, well. That's what I do."

She didn't move away. "Stay here? This spot's better anyway."

And somehow, the zombie feeling started to fade. The water kept splashing, the party kept raging, but I was exactly where I needed to be.