Heart Beat Song (A Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist Fanfiction)

Chapter Five: All I Do Is Win

"What are you leaning towards?"

It was officially 3 and a half days until the launch, and we still had no idea what was causing the glitch.

I had gotten up to get some cereal, walk around and give my brain a jump start when, to my surprise Zoey was standing beside Simon at the Cereal Bar a few feet away and she was talking to him. Like, instigated the conversation which is very unlike her.

"Tough call," Simon answered, "Middle of the day. Do I get a sugar cereal that'll make me crash hard, or something super healthy that I'll totally hate?"

"These are the struggles." She said. "My dad's a huge fa-well, was a huge fan of granola. I think I'm gonna go that route. Its kinda the best of both worlds scenario."

"What made your dad turn on granola?" Simon questioned. "Did granola hurt him in some way? Rob his house? Make out with his lady?"

 "No, he just uh, can't really swallow anymore, because he's dying-well slowly dying of this rare neurological disease and each week, he like, loses another ability, therefore big chunks of granola would just cause him to choke." Zoey looked over his shoulder at me, where I was giving her a wide-eyed look. "So, that's a whole lot of TMI I just spewed at you."

"I'm sorry, I had no idea."

"Why would you? We're strangers, there's no way you could know that, just like there's no way I could know if you were secretly miserable or something. I mean, you seem happy, but who knows what other people are...really thinking, right?"

"Smooth." I whispered to myself.

"Anyway, I'm Zoey, and if you want to forget this entire interaction ever happened, totally get it." She walked past him, coming to stand next to me.

"Nice going, slick." I muttered, causing her to cringe.

"Zoey," Simon said, turning around to look at her, his eyes skimming over me too. "We can do better than cereal. You wanna take a walk?"

"I stand corrected." I muttered, smiling as I busied myself with the Frosted Flakes dispenser.

"Yeah."

~~~

The next day came and Zoey, Max and I sat at one of the bars with our laptops, hoping that sitting together and a change of scenery would spark some epiphany about the bug.

I was absently chewing on the end of my pen, humming a song that was stuck in my head to myself.

"If you had the power to know what was going on in other people's heads, do you think you'd feel guilty?" Zoey asked suddenly. I stopped humming, opening my mouth and letting my pen fall out of it.

"No, I think I'd just get my feelings hurt a lot more often." Max told her.

"There she is!" I looked up to see Simon coming down the stairs. "My favorite mind reader." Max furrowed his eyebrows, looking at her while my eyes widened as I averted my gaze back to my lap top.

"That's me...Zo-Stradamus." Zoey said.

"I just wanted to say thank you again for our talk yesterday," Max and I looked up at each other from across the table at the same time, "And I'm here for you too, if you ever need someone to lean on. I mean that."

"Great. Sounds good. Will definitely take you up on that. You know what? I forgot a pencil at my desk, so I have to excuse myself." She grabbed her laptop, rushing back into the bull pen. Max held up a finger and we grabbed ours too, rushing after her.

"Uh, mind blown, so many questions. How did that happen? What?" Max asked as we stopped in front of her desk.

"There was a very awkward introduction at the cereal bar." I told him.