Electric Fox Summer

Maya's iphone buzzed in her back pocket, probably another selfie from the party she'd bailed on. Instead, she stood in the middle of her abuela's dusty farm in Texas, sweating through her favorite crop top, regretting every life choice that led here.

"Mira, mija, show the cousins how we do things," Abuela called, pointing toward the corral where an actual bull—like, a massive, horns-everywhere bull—stood regarding them with what looked suspiciously like judgment.

Maya's cousins, who'd grown up doing this, leaped onto the fence like they were practicing for an Olympic sport. Javi, the cute one she'd been secretly hoping to impress, turned and flashed that grin that made her stomach do that annoying flip thing.

"Your turn, city girl," he teased.

The bull huffed, and Maya's brain supplied very helpful images of herself flying through the air like in those fail compilation videos Tyreeq was definitely watching without her. She climbed the fence anyway, because that's what you do when you're trying to prove you're not just some soft suburban kid who needs a vitamin D supplement just to survive outdoors.

Then she saw it—a flash of orange near the barn. A fox, sleek and impossible, watching them like this whole production was entertainment. It tilted its head, almost like it was laughing at her.

"You see that?" Maya whispered.

"See what?" Javi leaned closer, their shoulders brushing.

Suddenly, lightning cracked across the sky—actual movie-perfect lightning that illuminated everything in stark white light. The bull snorted. The fox vanished. And in that weird electric moment, Maya realized something: nobody here actually cared if she was "cool." Javi wasn't waiting for her to be some perfected version of herself. Abuela just wanted her to be present.

She jumped down from the fence, dusty and imperfect and surprisingly okay with that.

"Race you to the house," she challenged Javi, and took off running before he could answer, iphone forgotten in her pocket, finally living something real instead of curating it for an audience that wasn't even watching.