Fox Fire Nights

Cable TV had been dead for three hours when I saw the fox again.

Emma was asleep on my shoulder, her newly orange hair vivid against my gray pillowcase—the first time she'd ever dyed it, a rebellion against her mom's "natural colors only" rule that had landed her a two-week grounding. We were halfway through binge-watching six seasons of zombie apocalypse shows, the kind where the characters make terrible decisions but the soundtrack keeps you watching anyway.

The fox appeared at the edge of the backyard, its coat the same burnt orange as Emma's hair, moving with that deliberate quiet that makes you hold your breath. It stopped, looked toward my window, and I froze—like if I moved, I'd break something important.

Three weeks until graduation. Three weeks until everything changed, until the cable stopped being our late-night escape and became real life. Emma would be going to college in California. I'd be staying behind, working at my dad's garage. We never talked about it, the way you don't talk about the thing that's eating you alive.

The fox turned away, disappearing into the dark, and something in my chest twisted.

"You still awake?" Emma murmured, her voice rough with sleep.

"Yeah," I said. "Saw a fox."

She sat up, rubbing her eyes. "Cool. My dad says they're smart as hell, foxes. Like, they remember faces. They know who's been in their territory."

I looked at her—really looked at her—and wondered if she knew I'd been in love with her since seventh grade, if foxes weren't the only ones who remembered everything.

"Hey," she said, softer now. "You know how in those zombie shows, there's always that moment? Right before everything goes bad, when they're just sitting around a fire, being normal? And it's almost worse because you know what's coming?"

"Yeah."

She took my hand. "I feel like we're in that scene right now."

The cable box blinked its useless blue light in the corner. Outside, somewhere beyond my window, the fox moved through the night, carrying its knowing through the dark.Emma squeezed my fingers. "But maybe we don't have to be in that scene anymore. Maybe we make a different one."

I thought about foxes and territory and orange hair and the way things end before you're ready. And then I stopped thinking and just squeezed back.