Zones Out

The chlorine smell hit me before I even walked through the gates. Another summer, another shift at Pineview Pool where I'd spend eight hours watching people have way more fun than me.

"You're zoning out again," Sarah said, flicking my shoulder. "I swear, you're like a walking zombie lately."

"Am not," I mumbled, though she wasn't wrong. Between finals stress, college applications, and my mom's new relationship drama, I'd been operating on autopilot for weeks. My whole life felt like someone else's TikTok I was just watching through a foggy window.

The pool was packed—little kids cannonballing, middle schoolers trying too hard to look cool, and the popular crew from school claiming their usual section of prime deck real estate. Including Tyler, who'd somehow gotten even more annoying since he made varsity.

I climbed into the stand, adjusting my sunglasses. My palms were already sweating against the metal rail. Summer in Texas meant three constants: heat, humidity, and my perpetual nervous sweat.

"Hey lifeguard!" someone yelled. I looked down to see Tyler and his friends doing that thing where they pretend to drown just to get attention. "Swimming lessons! You free later?"

His friends laughed. I felt my face heat up. "Cool it, Tyler."

"Just asking, Jeez. No need to be a zombie about it."

Something about the way he said it made me pause. Zombie. I'd been hearing that word a lot lately—from my teachers ("stop zombie-walking through class"), my friends ("you're so zombie lately"), even my mom ("are you okay? you seem like you're sleepwalking").

I looked out at the pool again, really looked at it. The way everyone moved in synchronized patterns—kids doing laps, friends splashing each other, the popular group maintaining their carefully curated social hierarchy. It was like watching something programmed, each person following invisible scripts they'd memorized.

And then I realized: they were all zombies too.

Tyler with his performative masculinity, the middle schoolers trying so hard to impress everyone, even Sarah with her carefully filtered Instagram posts. We were all just moving through the motions, following patterns we hadn't chosen, trying to fit into molds we hadn't made.

I got it then. Being a teenager wasn't about being alive—it was about learning how to exist in this weird in-between state where nothing felt quite real and everything felt like it was happening to someone else.

"Yo, Maya!" Sarah's voice broke through my thoughts. "You good? You literally just zoned out for like five minutes straight."

I looked at my sweaty palm against the rail, at the chlorine-blue water, at Tyler doing another fake-dramatic performance for his friends.

"Yeah," I said, finally feeling something real. "I'm good. Just thinking."

"About what?"

"About how maybe being a zombie isn't the worst thing," I said. "Maybe it's just part of growing up."

Sarah looked at me like I was crazy. Then she laughed. "You're so weird. But yeah, I guess so."

I adjusted my sunglasses and settled into my chair. Still a zombie, maybe. But at least I was a zombie who knew what she was doing here.