Zombie Mode

The fluorescent lights of the school hallway hummed like a dying electronics. I shuffled through them, a full-on zombie after pulling an all-nighter for finals. My phone buzzed in my sweatshirt pocket.

"Padel later? Marcus's got courts reserved," Jace's text read.

I stared at it. Padel with the crew used to be everything—Friday afternoons spent laughing at our terrible serves, being those loud kids that made parents side-eye us. But lately? Jace had been ghosting our friendship for months, ever since he started hanging with the popular crowd. Now he only hit me up when he needed a fourth for padel or wanted to copy my calc homework.

Mom thrust a glass of orange juice and a vitamin at me that morning. "You look dead," she'd said. "Take this. And maybe go outside?"

Maybe she had a point. I hadn't been outside in days.

At home, my phone buzzed again. "Bro? You coming?"

I looked at my goldfish bowl. Finnegan was doing that thing where he floated sideways at the surface, barely moving. I'd won him at the carnival freshman year, back when everything felt easier. Back when Jace and I were actual friends, not just convenience.

Something shifted in my chest. I was done being the backup friend, the one who showed up whenever he snapped his fingers.

"Can't," I typed back. "Got plans."

I grabbed my bike instead. Rode to the creek where we used to hang before everything got complicated. The sun hit my face, real and actual vitamin D or whatever. I sat there skipping stones until my phone went quiet.

That night, I cleaned Finnegan's bowl. He perked up immediately, swimming all fast and excited like he knew I'd finally shown up for something.

Tomorrow I'd find new people to play padel with. People who didn't treat friendship like a zombie—technically alive but with zero pulse.