Fox in the Flash

Maya's been crushing on Leo since seventh period English started, which was approximately never ago because she spends half her time dissociating and the other half trying to look chill while her brain does cartwheels. So when he invites her to Chloe's party Friday night, she accidentally says "yeah bet" before her anxiety can veto the decision.

Friday arrives and Maya's existential crisis kicks in around 4 PM. She spends twenty minutes doing her eyeliner only to wash it off and start over, then changes outfits three times before settling on the first one. Her little brother, the absolute menace, catches her mid-spiral and hands her a papaya he'd been saving for snack time.

"You need this more than me," he says, like the almost-ten-year-old sage he apparently is. "Also you look mid, fix your hair."

She fixes her hair. She eats the papaya standing in her kitchen, feeling weirdly sophisticated about this exotic fruit moment, even though she's literally just vibing with tropical produce in her Crocs.

The party's already popping when she gets there—Maya can hear the bass from two blocks away. She's halfway through the door when she spots Leo on the porch, laughing at something Chloe said, and suddenly her chest is doing that lightning thing where her heart basically electrocutes itself. It's fine. Everything's fine. She's got this.

Except she doesn't, because two minutes in, someone bumps her arm and her phone goes flying, sliding across the porch and straight off the edge.

Maya doesn't even think—she's just running, down the porch steps and into the dark backyard, chasing her phone like it's her entire personality. She finds it near the bushes, screen miraculously intact, but that's when she sees it: an actual fox, sitting three feet away, looking at her like she's the weird one for being in this backyard at 10 PM on a Friday.

"No shot," she whispers.

The fox tilts its head, then trots off like it owns the place (it kind of does, this is nature's house now).

When she stands up, Leo's standing on the porch above her, phone flashlight trained on her.

"Did I just see you running from a fox?" he asks, and there's that lightning feeling again, except this time it's different—because he's laughing, but not at her. With her.

"The fox was vibing," Maya says, because her brain has left the chat. "I respect its boundaries."

Leo hops down the porch steps and stands next to her. "Yeah? That papaya on your shirt says otherwise."

Maya looks down. There's papaya on her shirt. She's wearing papaya like a chaotic badge of honor.

"It's called fashion, look it up,"

She says it with zero confidence, but Leo just smiles, all genuine and soft in the porch light.

"I think it's sick," he says. "Very you."

Maya doesn't even know what "very you" means, but she's pretty sure it's the best thing anyone's ever said to her. The fox is gone, her shirt's ruined, and she's holding her phone like a shield, but somehow—somehow—she thinks she might be winning.