Chasing Foxfire

The summer before sophomore year, I spent every morning choking down these neon-orange **vitamin** gummies my mom swore would 'optimize my brain development.' Honestly? The only thing they optimized was my ability to make faces in the bathroom mirror.

That was the summer I met Carter's **dog**—this chaotic golden retriever mix who answered to 'Disaster' more than his actual name, Buster. Carter was the kind of effortlessly cool upperclassman who made showing up to parties thirty minutes late look like a power move. I was the kind of person who showed up thirty minutes early and then pretended to get a text that required me to 'wait outside.'

'You're overthinking it,' Carter said when he caught me hyperventilating before jumping into the lake at his party. 'Just **swimming**, dude. Not a dissertation defense.'

But that was the thing about being fifteen—everything felt like a dissertation defense. Every outfit choice was a political statement. Every casual 'hey' in the hallway was a referendum on your entire existence.

The night the storm hit, we were all at Carter's house, way out by the woods where the streetlights didn't reach. **Lightning** kept cracking the sky open, and someone suggested we play truth or dare, which was basically a recipe for disaster.

'Truth or dare, Maya?' Carter asked, and something in his voice made my stomach do that annoying flip thing.

'Truth,' I said, because I was a coward.

'Who do you like?'

The room went dead silent. This was it—the moment. I could feel everyone watching, waiting.

Then Buster tore through the screen door, barking like a maniac, and we all jumped. Followed him outside and saw it—a real, actual **fox** standing at the edge of the woods, glowing orange in the porch light, watching us like we were the weird ones.

'No way,' Carter breathed.

The fox stared at us for what felt like forever, like it knew something we didn't. Then it turned and vanished into the darkness, and Buster took off after it.

We spent the next hour running through the woods in a thunderstorm, calling for his dog, getting soaked, getting mud everywhere, getting absolutely scolded by Carter's mom when we finally stumbled back with Buster who'd apparently just gone on his own little adventure.

Later, sitting on Carter's front porch wrapped in towels, hair dripping, adrenaline still buzzing through my veins, Carter looked at me and said, 'You never answered the question.'

The lightning flashed again, illuminating everything for one perfect second.

'I know,' I said.

And for the first time all summer, I didn't overthink it.