Zombie Walk Home

Maya felt like a straight-up **zombie** as she dragged herself through the hallway, still recovering from the homecoming dance weekend. Three hours of sleep will do that to you. Her phone buzzed — yet another text from the group chat blowing up about who hooked up with whom.

"You look dead," Chloe said, falling into step beside her. "Rough night?"

"You have no idea." Maya adjusted her backpack, trying to casually angle her phone screen away. She'd been doing some light social media **spy** work on Chloe's older brother ever since that awkward Almost Moment at the dance. She wasn't proud of it, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and apparently stalking his Instagram stories counted as desperate in her book.

The school mascot — a dude in a sweaty **bear** costume that smelled like defeat and Febreze — lumbered past, high-fiving freshmen. The bear's head was tilted sideways, like even it couldn't deal with Monday morning energy.

"So," Chloe lowered her voice, "you gonna tell me what happened with Jason, or am I gonna have to wait for the tea to spill itself?"

Maya's face flushed hot. The truth? They'd talked for like twenty minutes about literally nothing, he'd smiled at her with those stupid perfect teeth, and then she'd overthought herself into paralysis and bailed. Classic Maya behavior.

"Nothing happened," she mumbled. "It's fine. Everything's fine."

"Girl." Chloe stopped walking and gave her that look, the one that said I've known you since seventh grade, try again. "You've been checking his stories every three hours. I can see your screen reflection in your locker mirror."

Busted.

"Okay, FINE." Maya groaned. "I don't know what I'm doing. I feel like I'm operating on zero emotional capacity here. Like, how does everyone else just KNOW how to do this stuff?"

Chloe cracked up. "We're all faking it, Maya. Literally everyone. Jason? Definitely faking it. That bear guy? 100% faking it. Me? Currently faking that I understood anything in chem today."

The bell rang, and the hallway dissolved into controlled chaos.

"Just text him," Chloe called over her shoulder as she headed to class. "And maybe ease up on the spy work. It's giving low-key creepy energy."

Maya stood there for a second, watching the bear mascot mascot its way down the hall, somehow still enthusiastic despite being literally inside a plastic furnace. She pulled out her phone, opened Jason's contact, and typed: Hey. Dance was fun.

Then she deleted it. Typed it again. Deleted it again.

Some third time's charm, right?

Maybe tomorrow she'd be a functional human being instead of this anxiety-ridden zombie version of herself. But for now, small wins: she hadn't run away screaming. Progress.