Zombie Center Fielder

Maya dragged herself to third period feeling like a straight-up zombie. Two-hour baseball practice followed by a math test would do that to a person. Her arms felt like they weighed twice as much as usual, and her brain was operating on approximately 3% functionality.

"You look dead," whispered Jordan from the seat next to her. "Rough night?"

"Rough morning," Maya mumbled, dropping her backpack with a thud. "Coach had us running bases until I thought I was gonna literally pass out. Then I come home to my mom being all 'we're eating healthy now' and forcing everyone to try her gross spinach smoothie recipe."

Jordan cracked up. "Bold of her to assume we have the energy to be healthy."

"Exactly," Maya said, pulling out her phone. She opened Instagram and immediately went to Alex's profile—her not-so-secret routine that she'd been doing for weeks now. Some people might call it spying. Maya preferred the term 'advanced research.' She scrolled through Alex's recent posts: sunset at the beach, a pic of their dog, a cryptic lyric caption from a song she didn't recognize. What did it mean? Was Alex thinking about someone? Was that someone HER?

"You're doing it again," Jordan said, side-eyeing her phone. "Just talk to them at practice later."

"I can't just TALK to Alex," Maya said, her voice going higher than she intended. "What would I even say? 'Hey, I've been cyber-stalking you for three weeks, wanna hang out?' That's not creepy at all."

"You literally play baseball together every day," Jordan pointed out. "You're on the same TEAM. You could literally just start with 'nice catch today' or literally ANYTHING normal."

Maya groaned and put her head down on her desk. "Being normal is overrated. Also exhausting. Like this conversation. I need a nap until practice."

"You and me both," Jordan said. "But at least we survived the spinach smoothie era of your life."

"Barely," Maya said. "Barely."