Zombie Hearts Club

Maya's legs burned from running track practice, but she kept going. Coach said state qualifiers were two weeks away, and honestly, running was the only thing keeping her sane lately. That, and obsessing over Leo—the sphinx of the sophomore class. Cute, mysterious, and completely unreadable.

"You coming to Jordan's party tonight?" her best friend Sam asked as they stretched. "His parents are out of town. AGAIN."

Maya hesitated. She'd been to enough high school parties to know the routine: same people, same music, same awkward conversations. She always ended up feeling like a zombie—stumbling around, out of place, wishing she could teleport home.

"Sure," she said, because what else did she have to do?

The party was exactly what she expected. Bad punch, worse music, people pretending to be cooler than they actually were. Maya ended up on the back patio, where some girl from drama class was reading palms.

"Your lifeline's short," the girl said, examining Maya's hand. "You overthink everything. You need to live a little."

Maya laughed. "Tell me something I don't know."

"Your heart line says you're scared to take risks. But your head line says you're smarter than you give yourself credit for. Those two are fighting, and it's making you miserable."

Damn. That hit home.

Then Leo walked out, looking gorgeous and unapproachable as ever. He sat on the patio steps, phone in hand, scrolling through something with that half-smile that made Maya's stomach do things it shouldn't.

The palm reader girl nudged Maya. "Go talk to him. Or I can read your palm again and tell you what you already know—that you'll regret it if you don't."

So Maya went over, heart pounding. They ended up talking for an hour about everything and nothing—how he hated being the mysterious new guy, how she wished she could just run away from expectations sometimes, how they both felt like zombies surviving high school on autopilot.

When he walked her to her bike later, their palms brushed against each other. Just for a second. But Maya knew this was the beginning of something real.

The sphinx had been solved. And she was done running from possibilities.