Zombie Walk Through Third Period

Maya shuffled into homeroom feeling like a straight-up zombie. Three hours of sleep after obsessively editing her short film until 3 AM will do that to you. Her eyeliner was probably smudged, her bun was barely holding on, and she'd accidentally grabbed her dad's ancient graphic tee—the one that said "ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE RESPONSE TEAM" in peeling letters. Perfect.

"You look dead, Mays," Jordan whispered from the desk behind her, tossing a folded note onto her chair.

Maya cracked a tiny smile. Jordan, with his perpetually messy dark hair and eyes that actually sparkled when he made dumb jokes, was the only thing keeping her from face-planting onto her calculus worksheet. They'd been flirting at the edge of dating for weeks now, that excruciating phase where every interaction felt both electric and terrifying.

At lunch, tragedy struck. Someone had snagged the last everything bagel, leaving Maya with the saddest container in the cafeteria: a spinach salad that looked like it had seen better days. She poked at it mournfully.

"Dude, just eat it," Jordan said, sliding into the seat across from her. "It's not gonna attack you."

"This spinach looks like it died of boredom three days ago."

"Better than my lunch." He gestured at his tray—a single papaya that looked suspiciously like it had been dropped on the floor. "My mom's going through this 'tropical fruit phase' and I'm the victim."

Maya laughed, but her stomach actually growled. "Trade you half my sad spinach for some of that papaya?"

"You're weird, Mays." But he split the fruit with his plastic fork, sliding half toward her.

Their fingers brushed. The tiniest spark. Her heart did that stupid flutter thing it always did around him now. But then the moment broke—Jordan's phone buzzed, and the smile fell off his face.

"My cat," he groaned. "Chaos got out again. My sister just texted. I gotta bail early and catch him before he terrorizes the neighborhood again."

"You named a cat Chaos?" Maya raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, well, he lives up to it. Last week he ate my entire history project."

Jordan stood up to leave, but then paused. "Hey, my phone's dead. Can I borrow yours to call my sister? Really quick."

Maya unlocked her phone and handed it over. As Jordan tapped in the number, her notifications flashed on the screen—Twitter threads about college applications, Instagram stories from friends whose lives seemed infinitely cooler than hers, group chats blowing up about weekend plans she hadn't been invited to.

Jordan noticed. "You good, Maya? You've been kinda...

"Zombie-like?" she finished for him. "Yeah. Just tired. And thinking about how everyone else has their whole life figured out and I'm here eating cafeteria spinach and worrying about film club deadlines."

Jordan sat back down. "That's not true. Your film is gonna blow everyone away. I've seen how hard you work on it." He paused. "And for what it's worth, I'd rather split weird fruit with you than be at any of those parties everyone's posting about."

The hallway noise faded. Maybe she wasn't a zombie—maybe she was just waking up.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Jordan actually blushed, which she'd never seen him do before. "So, uh, after I catch this cat... want to come over and help me re-film my history project? We could order actual food. Non-cafeteria."

Maya felt something shift in her chest—light, bright, and unexpectedly awake. "I'd love that. But only if there's no spinach involved."