Fox in the Outfield

The orange sunset bled into the chain-link fence as I sat alone on the baseball dugout bench, my phone buzzing with texts I wasn't answering. Everyone was at Jessica's party tonight. Everyone except me.

Coach had benched me for the season opener tomorrow. "You're overthinking it, kid," he'd said, like that helped.

That's when I saw it—a fox, tail twitching, sitting at the edge of the outfield like it owned the place. It stared right at me, amber eyes gleaming.

"Nice hit," someone said behind me.

I jumped. Tyler, our team's star pitcher, stood there holding two orange sodas. His uniform was stained with dirt from practice.

"What?"

"At practice yesterday." He sat down, handed me a soda. "You were crushing it until coach started hovering. Then you got in your head."

I cracked the tab open. "You saw that?"

"Everyone sees everything in this town." He nodded toward the fox. "That fox shows up before every big game. Team thinks it's good luck."

"I've never seen it before."

"Maybe you had to be sitting alone in the twilight." He bumped my shoulder with his. "You know, last year I froze in the semifinals. Couldn't throw strikes. Thought my life was over."

"But you're... you're Tyler. The golden boy."

He laughed, bitter. "Bro, I threw up in the bullpen before every game for three months. My palms wouldn't stop sweating. I thought I was gonna lose my scholarship, my friends, everything."

"Seriously?"

"Dead ass." He took a sip of his soda. "Here's the thing—nobody talks about the anxiety. Everyone posts their highlight reels on Instagram, but nobody shows the panic attacks in the bathroom before first pitch."

The fox stood up, stretched like it was bored, and trotted toward us. It stopped a few feet away, head tilted.

"Your omen," I said.

"Nah, it's just a fox." Tyler stood up, crushed his empty can. "But maybe the universe is trying to tell you something—you're not alone in this. Tomorrow, just play like you do when nobody's watching."

"What if I choke?"

"Then you choke. You'll still have friends. You'll still have a team. You'll still have orange sodas on dugout benches with anxiety-ridden pitchers." He held out a fist. "We're in this together, fam."

I bumped his fist. The fox chattered something that sounded suspiciously like agreement and bounded off into the dusk.

"See?" Tyler grinned. "Good luck."

I smiled, something I hadn't done all week. The orange sky was fading to purple, and for the first time, tomorrow didn't feel like a cliff edge anymore. Just a game. Just dirt and grass and people who had my back, even when I couldn't see them.