Zombie State of Mind

My hair looked like a golden retriever had attacked it, which was ironic because a golden retriever literally had attacked it. Buster, Mrs. Chen's dog, had decided my French braid was his personal chew toy during sixth period. Now I stood at the edge of Maya's pool party, frantically trying to fix my hair while everyone else was busy perfecting their cannonballs.

"You look like a zombie," Maya called out, doing a backflip off the diving board. She meant it as a compliment—zombie chic was trending, and she was top of the social pyramid.

I'd been running on three hours of sleep since finals week, so zombie mode was my natural state. My brain felt like it was swimming through Jell-O every time I tried to form a coherent sentence. Which was exactly why I hadn't noticed Brian from my English class approaching until he was already standing way too close.

"Cool party," he said, looking at my disaster-area hair instead of my eyes. "Your hair looks... intense."

I could have died. Right there. Sink into the pool and never resurface.

"Buster happened," I muttered, crossing my arms. Brian's own floppy hair flopped into his eyes, and he actually laughed.

"Same dog tried to eat my homework last week."

We ended up sitting on the pool edge, legs in the water, while he explained how his pyramid scheme of selling "study guides" had crashed and burned. He was kind of a mess, but a genuine one. When Maya called us back for a swimming race, Brian hesitated.

"I can't actually swim," he admitted, turning pink.

I looked at the social pyramid behind us—all the popular kids doing perfect laps—and then back at Brian.

"I can teach you," I said, surprising myself. "But first, we're doing something about your hair."

Maybe zombie mode wasn't so bad after all. It meant I was too tired to overthink, too exhausted to care what the pyramid thought, and awake enough to notice when someone real was standing right in front of me.