Zombies and Goldfish Crackers

Maya's palms were sweating so much she was practically leaving puddles on the kitchen counter. This was it—her first real high school party. Jackson's house. The Jackson who sat two rows behind her in pre-calc and whose hair somehow always looked perfect, even on Monday mornings.

"You got this," whispered Chloe, her best friend since kindergarten, adjusting Maya's ponytail for the fiftieth time. "Just be chill. Be casual. Be—"

"A zombie?" Maya finished, staring at the decorations. Jackson's mom had gone ALL OUT for Halloween. Fake cobwebs everywhere. Skeletons hanging from the ceiling. A literal fog machine making the whole basement look like the set of a low-budget horror film.

"Exactly. Zombies are in right now. Lean into the undead aesthetic."

Maya grabbed a handful of goldfish crackers from a snack bowl, needing something to do with her hands. She was so nervous she felt like her brain had been reduced to the three-second memory span of an actual goldfish. Jackson walked in—THE Jackson—and suddenly Maya was choking on a tiny cheddar fish.

"You good?" Jackson asked, appearing beside her like he'd teleported. His hair fell across his forehead in that way that made girls' TikTok edits blow up.

"Fine," she wheezed. "Just. These crackers. Aggressive."

He laughed. Not a polite laugh. A real one. "Wanna help me with the zombie makeup station? My mom went overboard and now we have, like, fifty people waiting for fake wounds."

Maya's heart did something embarrassing. "Sure. Yeah. I can... do zombie stuff."

They spent the next hour applying fake blood and teaching freshmen how to walk like the undead. Maya forgot to be nervous. She made Jackson laugh so hard he snorted goldfish up his nose. She forgot to fix her hair. She forgot to overthink every single thing that came out of her mouth.

At midnight, when her mom's minivan pulled up outside, Maya realized something. She wasn't the awkward girl with sweaty palms and zero social skills anymore. She was just Maya—someone who could make the cute boy laugh, who could improvise zombie wounds, who belonged here.

"Same time next week?" Jackson asked, standing on the porch.

"Definitely," she said. And this time, she didn't even check if her hair was perfect before walking away.