Fox in the Outfield

Fox—that's what everyone called me, ever since I showed up to seventh grade with that ridiculous orange streak in my hair. Never mind that my actual name was Jordan. Fox stuck, and honestly, it was better than the alternative my middle school bullies had planned.

The baseball thing was supposed to be ironic. Me, the least athletic person at Northwood High, somehow landing a spot on varsity? Spoiler: I didn't. My twin brother Marcus did—the golden child, the starting pitcher, the one whose jersey actually fit. I was just the backup scorekeeper, the one who froze in the outfield during PE when the ball came anywhere near me.

"Bro, you gotta stop living vicariously through my arm," Marcus had said that morning, tossing his glove in the air like it was nothing. "It's kinda sad, actually."

Kinda sad. That was Marcus for you—brutally honest, zero filter, somehow still everyone's favorite.

The championship game against our rivals was supposed to be *his* moment. But when Marcus hyperextended his elbow warming up, suddenly Coach was looking at me like I could magically channel his twin telepathically or something.

"You've seen him pitch a million times," Coach insisted, while the real fox—the actual animal, not my nickname—darted across the edge of the field behind him, like a sign from the universe that this whole situation was completely cursed. "Just do what he does."

What he did was throw fastballs that made batters look like they were swinging at ghosts. What I did was throw balls that occasionally reached the catcher, if physics was feeling generous that day.

I took the mound anyway. Because what was I gonna do? Say no? Let my team forfeit because their backup was too busy having an existential crisis?

First pitch: ball. Second: wild pitch, runner advanced. Third: I managed to hit the batter, which apparently was a thing that could happen.

The water fountain beyond the outfield fence called to me. Not literally—though at this point, I wouldn't have put it past the universe to start speaking through plumbing. Just the idea of it. Cool, hydrating, not currently humiliating myself in front of half the school.

"FOX!" someone yelled from the bleachers. Great, now the nickname was a taunt. "YOU GOT THIS!"

It was Chloe. She was sitting with her friends, probably wondering why she'd agreed to come to this game in the first place. Me and her had something... not a thing, but maybe the beginning of one? She'd laughed at my jokes in history class. That was basically marriage in high school terms.

Okay. Not okay, actually. This was a disaster.

But then—AND I STILL DON'T KNOW HOW THIS HAPPENED—I threw a strike. Then another. Three up, three down, and I was suddenly the person who'd saved the inning, the backup nobody who'd somehow pulled off something impossible.

After the game, Chloe found me near the water fountain, where I was aggressively hydrating to compensate for nearly passing out from stress.

"So," she said, and I swear my heart did something illegal. "Fox." She grinned. "That's actually kinda cute, you know?"

"It's ridiculous," I said, splashing water on my face because I needed to cool down and also needed an excuse to not look at her directly. "It's a hair streak from sixth grade that won't go away."

"Nah." She bumped my shoulder with hers. "It's got character. Like your pitching. Wild, but it works."

We stood there for a minute, the sounds of the team celebrating behind us, the real fox watching from the edge of the field like even nature was invested in my romantic development.

"Hey," Chloe said. "You wanna get water? Like, from a place that's not a gross fountain?"

"Yeah," I said, not even trying to play it cool. "Yeah, I do."