Foxes Don't Take Vitamins

I never thought I'd be the type to hide a fox in my backpack, but here we are.

It started when Mia—my best friend since seventh grade—decided we were "growing apart." Her words, not mine. She'd joined the volleyball team, started wearing different clothes, spending time with people who said "slay" unironically. I was still the same quiet girl who sat in the back of AP Bio, dissecting frogs while everyone else discussed homecoming.

So when I found the fox—scrawny, one ear torn, hiding behind the dumpster behind my mom's vitamin shop—I didn't tell Mia. I didn't tell anyone.

"Hey little guy," I whispered, tearing off a piece of my turkey sandwich. "You hungry?"

The fox—let's call him Rusty, even though he was more gray-orange, like old cheese—looked at me with these wild, suspicious eyes. But he took the sandwich.

Every day after school, I'd visit him. I became the weird girl who talked to dumpsters. But it was fine. It was better than fine.

My mom kept pushing those gummy vitamins on me. "You're always inside," she'd say. "You need sunlight. You need nutrients."

"I'm fine," I'd say, pocketing the vitamin gummies she left on my dresser.

One day, I brought them to Rusty. "Hey buddy," I said, holding out a gummy. "My mom says these make you strong."

Rusty sniffed it, looked at me like I was crazy, and ate it anyway.

A month later, Mia showed up behind the vitamin shop. I froze, mid–sandwich tear, hand extended to Rusty.

"You've been feeding a fox?" she asked.

I waited for her to make fun of me. To say "that's so random" or "you're so weird." Instead, she sat down beside me.

"Can I meet him?"

We sat there for an hour, watching Rusty nap in a patch of sunlight. Mia told me she felt fake with her new friends. I told her I felt like I didn't belong anywhere. We ate the rest of the vitamin gummies together. They tasted like artificial strawberry and secrets.

"Friends don't let friends talk to dumpsters alone," Mia said.

"Agreed."

Rusty opened one eye, yawned, and went back to sleep.

Some things don't need to change. Some things just need to grow. And maybe that's enough.