Zombie Mode Deactivated

I'd been running on zombie mode all week—dead inside, functioning on autopilot, surviving on caffeine and spite. Friday finally hit, and honestly? I was ready to peace out from everything.

"Marcus, can you walk the dog?" Mom called from the kitchen. "And dinner's almost ready!"

"Yeah, yeah, got it." I grabbed Buster's leash. Our golden retriever looked at me like I'd personally betrayed him by making him wait an extra five minutes.

We headed out, and that's when I saw her—Maya, from my AP Bio class, sitting on her front porch, crying. Not the pretty movie cry. The ugly, can't-breathe, everything-is-awful cry.

My brain said keep walking. My feet said something else.

"Hey?" I approached carefully. "You good?"

Maya looked up, mascara everywhere. "No. My parents are getting divorced and I just failed my chem test and—" She dissolved again.

Buster, being the legend he is, trotted right up to her and nudged her hand with his wet nose. She laughed through tears.

So there we were, two awkward teens on a porch with a dog who understood emotional support better than we did. We talked for like two hours about everything—how school feels like a constant performance, how social media makes us feel like everyone else is living their best life while we're stuck in tutorial mode, how neither of us had figured out who we actually were supposed to be.

"I feel like such a zombie all the time," she admitted. "Just going through motions."

"Same," I said. "But like... not right now."

She smiled, and my stomach did that embarrassing flip thing.

I got home late. Mom had made stuffed spinach shells—my favorite, actually, though I'd never admit I liked anything green.

"Where were you?" she asked, not mad, just curious. "And why did the cable guy leave a note saying we need to reschedule?"

"Oh." I'd missed the appointment. I should've felt stressed about it. "I was... talking to someone."

For the first time in forever, I didn't feel like a zombie at all. I felt awake. And maybe that was enough for now.