The Night I Learned to Run

My hair had looked perfectly fine this morning. Actually, that's a lie—it had been a disaster since seventh grade when I decided bangs were a good idea. But tonight, at Tyler's party, it reached catastrophic levels.

"You look like a zombie," Maya said, sliding onto the curb next to me. She didn't mean it meanly; Maya was incapable of meanness, which was exactly why I'd been crushing on her since September.

"Thanks," I said. "I was going for 'exhausted freshman whose social life is running on fumes,' but zombie works."

She laughed, and something in my chest did that stupid fluttery thing. My dog, Buster, chose that exact moment to escape through the unlatched gate and go tearing down the street.

"Buster!" I yelled, already scrambling up. "Sorry, I gotta—"

"I'll help!" Maya was already running, her sneakers hitting the pavement in this effortless rhythm that made mine feel clumsy and desperate.

We chased that dumb dog through three backyards, over a fence that ripped my jeans, and straight into the woods behind the old Miller place. I was wheezing, my hair was plastered to my forehead with sweat, and I had never been more aware of every single thing wrong with me.

Then we saw it—a fox, all amber eyes and rust-colored fur, standing on a fallen log like it owned everything. Buster froze. The fox stared at us, completely unbothered, before slipping away between the trees like smoke.

"Whoa," Maya breathed.

"Yeah," I said, and my voice came out weirdly thick.

We walked back in silence, Buster trotting faithfully beside us like he hadn't just ruined my life. When we reached my driveway, Maya turned to me.

"Your hair's a mess," she said, and I felt my face heat up. "But you know what? It looks good like that."

Then she smiled at me—a real one, not the polite kind she gave everyone else—and I understood something about running: sometimes you chase things because you're terrified they'll get away. Sometimes you run because you're terrified they won't.

"See you Monday," she said.

"Yeah," I called back, watching her go. "See you Monday."

Buster sat down and looked at me like I was the idiot. I scratched behind his ears, my heart still running a race it had already won.