Zombie Mode Activated

At 3 AM, Maya felt like a zombie. Not the cool, Netflix kind — the "I have a chemistry test tomorrow and my brain has officially left the chat" kind. She'd been spying on Leo's Instagram for two hours, analyzing every story like it was a classified government document.

"You good?" Her mom appeared in the doorway, holding out one of those horse-pill vitamins. "You look dead."

"I'm fine," Maya lied, accepting the vitamin. "Just... studying."

Her mom's eyes landed on the phone. "Mmhmm. Studying. Make sure you actually sleep, okay? You're not a robot."

Maya waited until the door closed before clicking back to Leo's profile. Three hours ago, he'd posted a picture of a sunset. Not just any sunset — the one behind the school, near the old baseball field. The caption was just a goldfish emoji.

A goldfish emoji.

Maya's own goldfish, Fin, swam in his bowl on her desk, oblivious to her spiraling. She'd won him at the county fair last summer, and somehow this tiny orange fish had become her emotional support animal.

"What does it mean, Fin?" she whispered. Fin blew a bubble.

At school the next day, Maya moved through the halls in a fog. Sleep deprivation gave everything this weird, dreamy quality. She spotted Leo at his locker, and her stomach did that thing — the same thing it did when she'd watched him laugh with his friends yesterday while she was supposedly "just passing by."

"Hey, Maya!"

She jumped. Leo. Right there.

"Uh, hi!" Her voice came out weirdly high. "What's up?"

"Not much." He leaned against the locker, all casual. "You coming to the game Friday?"

"Maybe?" She tried to play it cool, but inside she was screaming. "Who's playing?"

"Us. Against North. You should come."

Before she could respond, a dog came bounding down the hallway — Mrs. Gable's golden retriever, who'd somehow escaped again. The hallway erupted in chaos, laughter, students chasing the excited dog through the crush of bodies.

Leo laughed, and Maya found herself laughing too, weirdly grateful for the interruption.

"Crazy day," he said, shaking his head.

"Every day is crazy here," she replied, and it came out more honest than she'd meant.

"Yeah." He looked at her for a second, like he was really seeing her. "But that's kind of the point, right?"

Later that night, Maya sat at her desk, vitamin forgotten, phone set to Do Not Disturb. Fin swam lazy circles in his bowl. The goldfish emoji from Leo's post stared back at her from her screen — he'd posted a new picture. The sunset again, but this time with words: "Sometimes you just gotta say hi."

Maya smiled. Maybe she didn't need to spy. Maybe she could just say hi.

Zombie mode or not, she was ready to actually live.