Zombie Summer at Diamond Park

I'd been a total zombie all week—three hours of sleep each night, fueled by caramel macchiatos and sheer panic over summer school physics. My best friend Jordan had been texting me all morning about the baseball tournament at Diamond Park, but I'd left him on read until my phone battery died.

"You look dead," Jordan said when I finally showed up at the park around noon. He was wearing his lucky jersey, knees grass-stained from sliding into home base earlier. "Want some spinach dip? My mom made it."

"Your mom literally puts spinach in everything," I groaned, but I took a scoop anyway. "Where's the team?"

"They went to get pizza. I stayed behind to wait for you." Jordan bumped my shoulder with his. "You know, like a good friend would."

The guilt hit me harder than a baseball to the face. Jordan had been there for me through everything—when my parents split, when I failed my driving test, when I spent three weeks obsessing over Riley who never even knew I existed. Meanwhile, I'd been treating him like background noise in my own personal zombie apocalypse.

"Sorry," I muttered, staring at the empty baseball field. "I've been so caught up in my own stuff lately. School stuff, you know?"

"Dude, it's July," Jordan said. "School stuff can wait. That's actually why I wanted you here."

He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. "We're doing a summer league. Zombie Baseball. It's this thing where everyone plays exhausted, like, sleep-deprived on purpose. It's supposed to be funny."

I stared at him. "You invented a sport where everyone plays like they're undead?"

"Well, when you say it like that..." Jordan shrugged. "I thought it could be our thing. Me and you. Since we're both always tired anyway."

Something in my chest cracked open. All summer I'd been focused on reinventing myself, becoming someone new and better, when the person I really needed was standing right in front of me with grass-stained knees and too much spinach dip.

"I'm in," I said. "But first, we're getting more dip. And you're teaching me how to actually hit the ball."

Jordan grinned. "Deal. But don't come crying to me when you strike out looking like a zombie."