Orange Soda and Lightning

The baseball smacked into the chain-link fence with a metallic clatter that echoed through the empty park. Meena stood at home plate, her cheap aluminum bat沉重 at her side, watching as Marcus—her brother's annoyingly hot friend—jogged after it.

"You've got torque, Meen," Marcus called, flashing that crooked grin that made her stomach do backflips. "But your follow-through is trash."

Meena flipped him off, but she was sweating through her t-shirt and the orange soda she'd chugged earlier was roiling like a storm cloud. This was supposed to be casual. Just batting practice with her brother and his friends. Instead she was overthinking every swing like her entire social standing depended on not embarrassing herself.

"Wanna hit the pool?" called Riley, perched on the picnic table in her bikini, tapping away on her phone. The cable knit of her swimsuit shimmered in the late afternoon sun—branded, expensive, everything Meena's Target gear wasn't.

The pool. Right. Because of course they'd end up there. Meena's stomach dropped. She hadn't brought a suit. Hadn't planned on this. Hadn't planned on Marcus watching her with those amber eyes that made her feel like she was glowing and glitching at the same time.

"Nah," she said, too quickly. "I gotta get home. My mom's—"

A fox darted out from behind the dumpster. Lean and russet-coated, its movements precise as it sniffed the discarded soda can near home plate. The whole conversation stopped. The fox glanced at them, unimpressed, then trotted off into the woods beyond left field.

"Dude," breathed Tyler. "A whole-ass fox."

"Florida wildlife," said Marcus, but he was looking at Meena now, really looking at her. "You okay? You look—I don't know. Spaced out."

She did what she always did when feelings threatened to spill: she made it a joke. "Just processing how that fox had more game than me."

Marcus laughed. Actual laughed. And for a second, the awkwardness dissolved into something else. Something warm and bright as the orange sunset bleeding across the sky.

"Your form's not trash," he said, quieter now. "You just need to stop thinking so hard. Swing like you mean it."

They all ended up at the pool anyway, Meena in her underwear and an oversized t-shirt, floating on her back while the boys did cannonballs and Riley complained about getting her weave wet. Marcus sat on the edge, his legs in the water, not pushing, just watching her with that expression that said he saw her.

Really saw her.

Later, walking home under streetlights that buzzed like nervous energy, Meena realized her hand was still tingling where Marcus had hauled her out of the water. She'd come for batting practice and stayed for something else entirely. Something about foxes and orange sunsets and the way someone could make you feel seen without saying a word.

Her phone buzzed. Marcus had sent her a video: a fox, caught on someone's porch cam, batting a baseball around like it invented the game.

"Swing like you mean it," the caption read.

Meena grinned at the screen. Maybe tomorrow she would.