Three Miles to Something Real

Maya's phone buzzed on her nightstand at 5:47 AM — three missed calls from her mom and a text that just said "we need to talk." She stared at her cracked iPhone screen, the blue light washing over her face in the darkness. Her stomach did that thing it always did when she felt like everything was about to fall apart.

She grabbed her running shoes instead. That's what she did these days when life felt like too much — she ran until her lungs burned and her legs turned to jelly, until the static in her head quieted down.

The October air hit her face like ice as she pounded down the sidewalk, past the dark houses with their sleeping families. Maya's phone kept buzzing in her pocket, each vibration another reminder of the conversation she'd been avoiding for three weeks. The one about college applications and money and how maybe she wasn't ready for any of it.

She slowed to a walk at the edge of the park, gasping for air. That's when she saw him — Connor from her AP Calc class, sitting on a bench with a gallon of orange juice and what looked like an entire pharmacy of supplements spread out next to him.

"What are you doing?" Maya asked, still breathing hard.

He jumped. "Vitamin regimen. My mom's on this health kick and I have to document it for her." He gestured to his phone propped up on a rock. "What are you doing?"

"Running from my problems, obviously."

Connor laughed, and Maya found herself sitting beside him, watching the sunrise paint the sky pink and orange while he explained why vitamin D was actually fake according to his research, and she told him about how her parents wanted her to stay in-state for college but she'd secretly applied to NYU.

"That's actually kind of brave," he said when she finished.

Maya's phone buzzed again. This time she didn't look at it. For the first time in weeks, the static in her head had gone quiet.

"Want to show me your vitamin research?" she asked.

He grinned. "It's groundbreaking stuff."

And sitting there on that park bench with a boy she barely knew and a bunch of supplements, Maya realized that sometimes the best way to handle things wasn't running away at all.