Chasing Fox

I'd been **running** laps around the track for forty-five minutes when my phone buzzed in my pocket. Mia's text lit up the screen: pool party at Tyler's. You coming?

My stomach did that annoying flip-flop thing. Tyler. The guy with messy copper-red hair that everyone called **Fox** because he was somehow always sneaking up on people, plus he had this mischievous grin that made you feel like he knew something you didn't.

I stared at my reflection in the gym mirror. My hair was a frizzy mess from the humidity, and I was already self-conscious about the new swimsuit I'd bought—bikini, two-piece, showing way more skin than I was used to. But this was summer before sophomore year, and everyone said this was supposed to be the time when I stopped being "that quiet girl" and started actually living.

Fox showed up at the party wearing board shorts and that smile. I was sitting on the edge of the pool with my legs in the water, trying to look chill while internally panicking about everything.

"You gonna **swim** or just test the water with your toes all day?" he said, splashing me.

I shrieked and glared. "I'm thinking."

"About?"

"How much I hate you right now."

He laughed—that genuine sound that made his nose crinkle—and suddenly I was sliding into the pool, letting the water hide my blush. He dove in after me, and for a while we were just two people floating in the deep end, talking about nothing and everything.

Later, when everyone else had moved inside for pizza, Fox stayed behind with me. He noticed me smoothing down my wet hair, trying to control the frizz.

"Your hair looks good like that," he said. "Wild."

I waited for the joke. It didn't come.

"Thanks," I said, and meant it.

We didn't date or anything. But that summer became the season I stopped apologizing for taking up space, started running without caring who was watching, and learned that sometimes the scariest things—like wearing a bikini, or talking to the boy with the fox-like grin—were exactly the things worth doing.