The Race We Never Finish

Jordan's lungs burned like someone had set fire to his chest, but he kept running. The cross-country trail wound through the woods behind school, and every step was one more away from the disaster zone that was the cafeteria lunch table.

"Bro, you good?" Marcus had caught up, effortless, breathing normal. "You've been main character energy all day."

"Just bear with me," Jordan panted, regretting the word choice immediately. Because that's when he saw it—a massive black bear, actual wildlife, standing ten yards ahead on the trail.

"No way," Marcus whispered. "That's a whole mood."

The bear looked at them like they were the weirdest thing it had seen all day, which, honestly, fair. Jordan's brain short-circuited. Run? Scream? Try to look unappetizing?

Then—rustling in the bushes. A fox, smaller and faster than anything had a right to be, darted between them and the bear. The bear huffed, clearly deciding this wasn't worth the hassle, and lumbered off into the deeper woods.

The fox paused, looked back at them with eyes that felt way too intelligent, and vanished.

"Did we just get saved by a fox?" Jordan asked, his heart hammering for completely different reasons now. "That's actually cracked."

"Nature's gotta balance itself somehow," Marcus shrugged, like this happened every Tuesday. "Also, you were literally about to yeet yourself backward."

They walked the rest of the way back to school, Jordan still processing everything. The lunch table drama with Riley—where he'd accidentally knocked over his chocolate milk while trying to look chill—felt approximately seven million years ago.

"Hey," Marcus said as they reached the school parking lot. "About earlier. With the whole Riley thing..."

"Don't." Jordan held up a hand. "I'm choosing to believe the universe sent a fox because the bear situation was too much chaos even for it."

Marcus laughed. "That's a whole narrative, but valid."

Jordan pulled out his phone, thumbs hovering over Riley's contact. Three little dots appeared before he even typed anything—she was already typing back.

Some races, he realized, you don't run away from. You just gotta show up and see what happens.