Zombie State of Mind

The sixteenth summer of my life had dissolved into a zombie-like haze, thanks to a Netflix marathon stretching across three too many nights. My brain felt like scrambled eggs, and my palm was perpetually sweaty from clutching my phone like a lifeline.

"You look dead," said Marcus, sliding onto the bench beside me at the park. He spun a baseball between his fingers, the worn leather catching sunlight. "Like, actually undead. I've seen corpses with more color."

"Ha ha," I deadpanned. "Not everyone can be baseball royalty. Some of us exist in the shadows."

Marcus snorted. "Baseball royalty? I ride the bench, Leo. The coach literally put me in to give the starters a water break last game."

I laughed despite myself. Marcus was the kind of friend who somehow made his own misery sound like victory. We'd been tight since seventh grade, when he'd defended me against some jerk who made fun of my vintage band tees.

"Speaking of," he said, tapping the baseball against his knee, "there's a party at Jenna's tonight. Her parents are out of town. You should come."

I froze. Parties weren't my scene. People, noise, expectations—no thanks. But the way Marcus looked at me, like he genuinely wanted me there, made something twist in my chest.

"I don't know..." I hesitated.

"Come on. It'll be low-key. And I promise not to abandon you for Jenna's hot cousin who's visiting from college. Again."

I rolled my eyes but nodded. "Fine. But if I die of social awkwardness, I'm haunting you forever."

"Deal." He grinned, that genuine smile that made people underestimate him. "Pick you up at seven?"

That night, standing in Jenna's crowded living room, I felt that familiar zombie feeling creep back—the overwhelming desire to retreat, disappear, become nothing. But then Marcus materialized with two sodas, nodding toward the back door.

"Escape route activated," he whispered.

We slipped outside into the cool night air, sitting on the back porch steps as distant laughter drifted from inside. For twenty minutes, we just talked—about everything and nothing, about baseball stats we'd memorized but never used, about how it felt to be sixteen and completely lost sometimes.

"You know what?" Marcus said finally. "This isn't so bad."

I looked at my best friend in the soft yellow light of the porch, and for the first time all summer, I didn't feel like a zombie anymore. I felt exactly like a human being—confused, awkward, weirdly hopeful, and completely okay with that.

"Yeah," I said. "Not bad at all."