Wild Things

Maya's hair was supposed to be sunset pink. Instead, it looked like cotton candy spilled on her head and someone tried to wash it off with disappointment.

She stood at the edge of Chloe's pool, clutching her towel like a lifeline. Everyone else was already swimming—laughing, splashing, acting normal. Meanwhile, Maya was having a crisis over whether to ruin her hair or look like the loser who wouldn't join in.

"Maya! You coming?" Chloe yelled.

"Just fixing my suit!" Maya called back, though her bikini was perfectly adjusted.

Her hands shook. Why was this so hard? Just a pool party. Just her entire social life hanging on whether she could act normal without freaking out.

The pink hair was her "summer glow-up." Now Maya couldn't decide if it made her look edgy or like she'd lost a fight with Pepto-Bismol.

She ducked behind the shed to breathe. And saw it.

A fox.

Five feet away, watching her with amber eyes. Its fur was the same messy ginger Maya had wanted—perfect, wild, unapologetic. The fox tilted its head, completely unbothered.

Maya froze. Was it rabid?

The fox yawned, stretched, then trotted closer. Its fur was matted with twigs and leaves, like it didn't care what anyone thought.

"Huh," Maya whispered.

The fox looked at her pink hair, then back at its own wild coat, judging her. Like, *really? You're stressing about that?*

Something cracked open. The fox was out here being completely unapologetic, and she was freaking out about hair dye?

Foxes don't dye their fur. Foxes just *are*.

Maya reached out slowly. The fox slipped away into the shadows with a backwards glance, leaving her with a choice: stay hiding, or go be wild.

Maya looked at the pool. Then cannonballed into the deep end.

She came up laughing. Her hair was wrecked, pink running down her face. She looked ridiculous.

And for the first time, she didn't care.

"There she is!" Chloe screamed. "What took you so long?"

"Had to have a moment," Maya said, slicking back her dripping hair. "But I'm here now."

Maya floated on her back, staring at the stars, thinking about wild things and hair dye and how fearlessness feels like swimming.

She was still anxious. Still awkward. Still the girl with cotton candy hair.

But she was swimming.

And the fox was somewhere out there, being unapologetically itself.

That felt like enough.