Summer of Wild Things

The vitamin bottle rattled in my backpack as I hiked up the trail. Mom had insisted—"You're growing, Maya, you need your nutrients"—but the real reason I'd packed them was because Tyler had mentioned he took the same brand after football practice. That was before I knew he only saw me as "his little sister's friend." Whatever. I was over it. Mostly.

"Wait up!" called Leo, loping behind me like an overenthusiastic golden retriever. We were the only two sophomores on this senior-heavy camping trip, and Leo had appointed himself my protector. Not that I needed protecting. Not that I minded.

The fire crackled later that night, sparks flying up to join the stars. The seniors were talking about colleges and parties and people I didn't know. I sat slightly apart, nursing a s'more I'd burned to a crisp, feeling like a vitamin deficiency personified—not enough of whatever made people cool.

Then I saw it—a fox, sleek and impossible, watching us from the tree line. Its eyes caught the firelight, glowing like something ancient and knowing.

"Did you see that?" I whispered.

Leo followed my gaze. "Whoa. That's—that's actually pretty cool." Not "weird" or "what?" but genuinely impressed.

The fox tilted its head, then vanished into darkness.

"Bear safety," Chloe, one of the seniors, announced suddenly. "We should go over it again, since we're basically in the middle of nowhere."

She launched into a lecture about food storage and making noise while hiking. But what I heard was: *we're small things in a big world, and we're pretending we know what we're doing.*

Later, Leo sat beside me on the log where I'd retreated. "You okay? You seem—I don't know. Not like usual."

"Just thinking," I said. "About the fox. And how it didn't care about any of this stuff that seems so huge."

"What stuff?"

"Everything. Being cool. Tyler. Who sits where at lunch. The fox just—is itself. Without trying."

Leo was quiet for a moment. "I like that you're not like everyone else," he said finally. "Like, you actually notice things. The fox. How the fire smells different depending on the wood. You don't just perform."

I swallowed around something tight in my throat. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. Also, I saw you taking that vitamin earlier. Is that really for football?" He grinned.

I laughed. "You saw that? God. No. My mom makes me take them. I only packed them because... never mind."

"Because Tyler?" Leo guessed.

"Was I that obvious?"

"Pretty much." He bumped my shoulder with his. "But I'm glad you brought them. Because then you would've stayed home, and I'd be stuck here with Chloe's bear lecture solo."

The fox appeared again at dawn, padding through the mist. Not watching us this time—just moving through its world, complete unto itself. I watched it and thought: maybe that was the whole thing. Not growing into someone new, but growing into yourself, like a vitamin doing its work invisibly. Like Leo, who'd somehow become exactly who he was without trying.

The bear spray hung untouched in the supply tent. We hadn't needed it. Some wild things you just had to meet as yourself.