The Fox in the Rain

I was supposed to be running laps for PE, but honestly, my cardio was holding on by a thread. So I was walking. Dramatically. Like, the kind of walking that says "I'm not lazy, I'm just experiencing the existential dread of being a sophomore."

That's when I saw it — a fox. Actual legit fox, hanging out behind the bleachers like it owned the place. Its fur was this gorgeous burnt orange, and it was just staring at me with these eyes that said, "I know things about you, Kayla."

We had this moment, okay? A real connection. Until Jackson from my AP Lit class decided to sprint past me, shouting "CABLE!" for absolutely no reason. The fox bolted. Jackson kept running. I stood there like an idiot, wondering if I'd hallucinated the entire thing.

"What was that about?" I asked Jackson later at lunch.

"Oh, I was trying to cut the cable TV cord with my dad this morning," he said, sliding into the seat across from me. "Fighting with customer service has me feeling some type of way."

I laughed, because honestly, relatable. And then we talked for, like, forty minutes. About everything. How his parents were getting divorced. How I felt like I was running toward nothing and away from everything. How he'd been wanting to talk to me for weeks but never knew what to say.

"That fox was low-key a vibe," he said. "Like, mystical."

"Right?" I said. "Maybe it was trying to tell us something."

"Like what?"

"Like..." I paused. "Maybe we don't need to have everything figured out. Maybe sometimes you just see a fox, and sometimes you talk to someone you barely know, and sometimes that's enough."

Jackson smiled, and it was like lightning struck — not the scary kind, but the illuminating kind. The kind that lights up everything and makes you see what was there all along.

"Want to hang out after school?" he asked. "We could go back to the bleachers. See if the fox returns."

"Deal," I said. "But if customer service calls, you're handling it."

"You're not gonna help me cut the cable?"

"Jackson, I can barely run a lap without existential crisis. You think I can handle Comcast?"

We laughed. The fox didn't return that day, but something better did — the feeling that maybe, just maybe, everything was going to be okay.