The Vitamin D Conspiracy

Maya's older brother Jordan had been acting weird all week. Glancing at his phone whenever she walked into the room. Closing tabs instantly. Even password-protecting his laptop—which had never happened before, ever.

"You're being sus," she said, flopping onto the couch beside him.

"What? No I'm not." Jordan slid his phone into his pocket like his life depended on it.

"You're totally hiding something. I bet I can figure it out."

"Don't even try."

Challenge accepted.

Maya waited until he left for his shift at the cafe. His phone sat on the counter—screen side down, almost begging to be investigated. She grabbed it, knowing his PIN (his birthday, because Jordan had zero opsec).

She expected to find... she didn't know what. Drugs? Gambling? An embarrassing TikTok account?

Instead, his browser history showed: fox habitat patterns, urban wildlife tracking, and seventeen tabs about what to feed injured animals.

And then she found the photos in his hidden folder.

A fox. A scrawny, mange-covered fox with the most pathetic ears Maya had ever seen. The fox was eating from Jordan's hand behind the garage.

"What?" Jordan stood in the doorway, backpack slung over his shoulder.

"Since when do you have a pet fox?" Maya laughed. "This is the most Jordan thing ever."

He sighed. "She showed up three weeks ago. Someone probably hit her with a car or something. She can't hunt properly, so I've been bringing her food."

"And you didn't tell me?"

"You're literally going to tell Mom and Dad."

"Am not. But I'm helping."

That was how Maya found herself kneeling behind the garage at 11 PM, holding out a piece of cooked chicken while Jordan explained which vitamin supplements he'd researched for fox rehabilitation. (Apparently, vitamin D deficiency was a huge problem for urban foxes. Who knew?)

"She's getting better," Jordan said softly as the fox ate from Maya's hand for the first time. "Pretty soon she won't need us anymore."

"That's kind of the point, though."

"I know. Still."

They sat there in silence while the fox finished eating, then limped back toward the woods. Maya had never really thought about what it meant to let something go because you loved it enough to want it to heal.

"Hey Jordan?" she said as they headed back inside.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for trusting me with your operation."

He smiled, just a little. "You're all right, little spy."

The next week, the fox stopped coming. But every time Maya saw Jordan researching something new on his laptop, closing tabs when she walked by, she'd ask, "what are you into now?"

And every time, he'd tell her.