Zombies Don't Eat Spinach

Maya's racquet felt like it weighed fifty pounds. Three hours of sleep, three matches, and somehow she was still standing on the padel court at regionals, living like the actual walking dead.

"You look like a zombie," her best friend Priya whispered from the sidelines. "Did you even study for that chem test?"

"Chem test?" Maya wheezed. "I forgot that existed."

Across the net, **lightning** lit up the sky—a jagged crack that made everyone flinch. The storm had been threatening all morning, dark clouds swallowing the sun. But the tournament director refused to pause. Play through, he said. Winners don't wait for weather.

Maya's opponent served. The ball shot toward her backhand corner.

Her brain caught up somewhere around "extension" and "follow-through." Her body, running on whatever bizarre energy source powered zombies, somehow connected. The ball ricocheted off the back glass, then the side wall.

Point. The tiny crowd cheered.

Then she saw him.

Lucas. From her history class. The one who'd asked to borrow a pen three weeks ago and had been living in her head rent-free since. He was watching. Actually watching.

Heat rose to her cheeks. She smoothed her hair. She smiled.

Then Priya's eyes went wide. "Maya—"

"What?"

"You have..." Priya gestured at her own teeth, making frantic faces.

Maya's tongue hit something green. **Spinach**. From the smoothie she'd grabbed at 6 AM because her mom said it would "help her focus." Enough time had passed for zombies to evolve into mammals, and she'd been playing padel with green gunk in her teeth.

For THREE MATCHES.

Every conversation. Every smile. Every time Lucas might have looked.

"I'm literally going to die," Maya whispered.

"You're winning," Priya said, "so technically you're a successful zombie."

The umpire called time. Thunder cracked directly overhead—everyone jumped. Rain started coming down, hard and sudden.

"Everyone inside!" the tournament director shouted.

In the scramble for shelter, someone bumped into Maya. Hard.

"Sorry—" Lucas. Right there. His hair was plastering to his forehead. He was grinning, a little crooked, totally unfair.

"Your backhand is actually insane," he said. "I've been watching since your first match."

Her brain short-circuited. "I've had spinach in my teeth for three hours."

"What?" He laughed, and it was the best sound she'd heard all day. "No you haven't."

"I literally have. My best friend's been trying to tell me for like an hour but the umpire kept yelling at us."

"Maya." He said her name like he was trying it out. "If you had spinach in your teeth, I promise I would've told you. I would've made a PowerPoint presentation about it."

"Why?"

"Because," he said, ducking under the awning with her, "I've been trying to figure out how to talk to you for three weeks."

Lightning flashed again, painting everything purple and white for a split second. Rain drummed against the metal roof. The tournament director was shouting something about rescheduling, adults were panicking about the courts, Priya was giving her a massive thumbs-up from ten feet away.

But none of it mattered.

"You're going down next round," Lucas said, bumping her shoulder with his. "My serve is unstoppable."

"In your dreams, zombie boy."

His grin widened. "See you there."

And maybe it was the lack of sleep. Maybe it was the adrenaline and the rain and the way everything smelled like ozone and possibility. But for the first time all day, Maya didn't feel tired at all.