The Fox in the Room

The parties in movies made it look effortless. People just flowed together like water, laughing and touching and belonging. But here I was, seventeen years old, pulling my beanie **hat** down further over my ears like it could somehow make me invisible.

Jordan's house was packed. The bass thumped in my chest. Everyone seemed to know exactly where to stand, what to say, whose hand to shake. I felt like a **zombie** moving through someone else's life, arms stiff at my sides, smile plastered on.

"Hey, you're Jordan's friend, right?"

I jumped. A girl in a crop top stood way too close. Her **palm** was warm when she grabbed my hand, squeezing like she'd known me forever. "I'm Maya. You're in his chem class, yeah?"

"Yeah, that's me," I managed, trying to pull my hand back without being weird. "I should—"

"You're doing that thing again," someone whispered behind me.

I turned to see Leo, Jordan's older brother, leaning against the doorframe like he owned the moment. He was smoking something that smelled like cloves and trouble.

"What thing?"

"The **spy** thing," Leo said, smoke curling around his words. "You're always watching. Never quite in the room."

My face burned. "I'm not—"

"You are. It's okay." His eyes crinkled. "You're slick about it, though. Quiet. Like a **fox**." He gestured with his cigarette toward the hallway. "C'mon. I won't tell anyone you bailed."

I should've said no. I should've stayed and tried harder to be normal. But something in Leo's voice—like he actually saw me—made me follow him out the back door into the cool night air.

"First party?" he asked, not mean. Just asking.

I nodded against my will. "Is it that obvious?"

"Nah." Leo grinned, flicking his cigarette into the darkness. "You just look like someone who'd rather be reading. Or literally anywhere else."

"Why'd you invite me out here, then?"

"Because I was exactly like you at seventeen." He shrugged. "Figured someone should tell you it gets better. Not the parties—those still suck. But the feeling like you don't know how to person? That fades."

Standing there in the quiet, with the bass muffled behind us and the sky huge and dark, something inside me unclenched. Not fixed. Not suddenly confident. But less alone.

"Thanks," I said, and meant it.

Leo opened the door back to the noise. "Your call, fox. Stay out here or go back in and practice being terrible at it. Either way's valid."

I adjusted my hat. I went back inside.