Fox Among the Wolves

I'd been stalking her Instagram for three weeks, which basically made me a professional creepy internet spy at this point. Fox—that's what I called her in my head, because she had this wild red hair and moved through the hallways like she owned them, sleek and untouchable. Real name: Sarah Chen. But in my fantasies, she was Fox, and I was just some random background character watching from the sidelines while she shone.

"You're taking those vitamin D gummies, right?" My mom's voice cut through my spiral of doom. She held out the bottle like it was some magical elixir that would fix my entire existence. "You're always inside, you're pale as a ghost, and you need to get out there."

"Mom, I'm fine," I muttered, but I took them anyway because arguing took more energy than I had.

Monday morning, I'm at my locker, pretending to be deeply interested in my physics textbook when Fox walks by with her squad. They're all laughing at something I'll never understand, and I'm hit with this wave of ... not jealousy, but this weird recognition that I'm never going to be part of that world. And honestly? I didn't even know if I wanted to be.

But then her phone drops. Like, literally falls out of her back pocket and lands at my feet.

I stared at it like it was an alien artifact. This was it. The moment. The universe had literally handed me an opportunity on a silver platter. I could be a hero, or I could be the person who returns her phone and actually talks to her for the first time since seventh grade.

"Uh, you dropped this," I managed, my voice cracking mid-sentence. Smooth. Truly smooth.

Fox—Sarah—turned around, and her eyes actually widened. "Oh my god, thank you! I thought I lost it forever. I'd actually die."

We locked eyes for a second, and in that moment, I wasn't a spy anymore. I was just some guy who'd returned her phone.

"No problem," I said, and for the first time in forever, I didn't feel invisible.

Maybe those vitamin gummies were working after all. Or maybe I'd just stopped watching from the sidelines and started actually living.