Unfollow the Wild

Maya's iphone buzzed for the third time in two minutes. Another notification. Another like on her post about the party she wasn't actually enjoying. Standing in the corner of Jake's basement, thumb hovering over the screen, she felt that familiar pinch in her chest—the one that whispered everyone else's life was somehow more vibrant, more authentic, more *real* than hers.

"You good?" asked Chloe, popping up beside her. Chloe, who always looked perfect even under basement fluorescent lights.

"Yeah, just checking something," Maya lied, pocketing her phone. "I'm gonna get some air."

The backyard was empty. She sat on the concrete edge of the patio, listening to the muffled bass thump through the siding. Then—a rustle in the bushes along the fence line.

A fox emerged.

Maya froze. It was smaller than she expected, russet fur catching the security light's glow. The fox didn't run. It tilted its head, studying her with intelligent eyes that held zero judgment. Then it did something unexpected: it flopped onto its side and began rolling in the grass, rubbing its back against the dewy ground like it owned the world.

Maya laughed. The sound surprised her—genuine, not performed for an audience.

The fox sprang up, shook itself off, and with one last glance, disappeared into the night.

She sat there for twenty minutes. Her iphone stayed in her pocket.

Walking home at midnight, she spotted her neighbor's cat, Pumpkin, perched on a porch railing. Pumpkin, who'd been her confidant since she was seven, who never asked why she was crying or what she got on her math test or why she didn't have a boyfriend. Pumpkin simply existed, accepting her without metrics or filters.

She'd passed this same porch a hundred times, always rushing, always somewhere else in her head. Tonight, she stopped. She let Pumpkin wind around her legs, purring like a tiny motorboat of unconditional acceptance.

Back in her room, Maya reached for her phone out of habit. Then she remembered the fox rolling in the grass, Pumpkin's steady gaze, the weightless feeling of sitting outside without documenting anything.

She plugged in her phone and left it on her nightstand.

For the first time in months, she fell asleep without scrolling through someone else's highlight reel, dreaming instead of russet fur and the freedom of not performing for an audience that wasn't even watching.