Fox in the Chlorinated Deep

The fox appeared at the edge of the pool deck exactly at 5 AM, its russet coat glowing against the predawn blue like it was waiting for something. Or someone.

"Dude, you're literally hallucinating," Jason said later when I mentioned it during third period. "Since when do foxes hang out at natatoriums?"

Since my life became a perpetual cycle of swim practices, AP classes, and my mom's increasingly desperate attempts to fix me with whatever supplement was trending on TikTok. Currently? Vitamin D gummies shaped like tiny bears that tasted like artificial strawberry and disappointment.

"They're essential for mood regulation, Maya," she'd said yesterday, pressing the bottle into my hand like it contained the secret to happiness. "Your levels are concerning."

What was concerning was how I was drowning in everything — expectations, the constant pressure to be perfect, the way the whole school seemed to be swimming through life while I was barely keeping my head above surface level. Even my boyfriend Damien had called me "intense" last weekend before breaking up with me because I "wasn't present enough."

So at 5 AM, when the pool was empty and the water was glass-still, I started finding the fox. Watching me from the deck, tail flicking, amber eyes considering. Wild and unbothered.

"Hey," I whispered to it one morning, dripping wet after my laps, clutching my vitamin gummies in the other hand. "You wanna split these? Probably better than whatever you're hunting back there."

The fox tilted its head. Then it did something shocking — it walked up and ate a gummy right from my palm.

We sat there for ten minutes, me and a literal wild animal, sharing vitamin-enhanced gummy bears in the blue light of dawn. Something cracked open in my chest. Not fixed — not suddenly okay — but lighter.

The next day, Jason caught me feeding the fox again. His jaw actually dropped.

"Okay," he said slowly. "That's actually the most unhinged thing I've ever seen. Also? Lowkey jealous."

The fox visits every morning now. My mom thinks the vitamin gummies are finally working. She's not wrong, but not in the way she thinks.

Some things you can't supplement. Some things you find at 5 AM in the blue light, sharing contraband breakfasts with a creature who doesn't care about your GPA or how fast you can swim fifty meters.

Wild things understand what it means to just exist.

That's the real vitamin, I think. Not measured in milligrams. Just being seen without performing.