Bull Rider's Lightning Strike

The vitamin C tablet sat on my tongue like a lie my mom made me swallow every morning since forever. "For your immune system, Kai," she'd say, already halfway out the door to her corporate job, while I stared at the rodeo poster taped to my ceiling.

"You riding today?" Jesse texted, blowing up my phone during third period.

"Maybe," I typed back, though we both knew "maybe" meant "hell yes" the second the final bell rang.

Me and the bull — a beast named Thunderbolt that weighed more than my entire extended family — had unfinished business. Last time, I'd lasted 1.7 seconds before eating dirt. My ribs still throbbed when it rained.

"Your mom's gonna kill you," Jesse said when we got to Miller's farm. "She found your helmet."

"Let her."

The crowd gathered — mostly high school kids, some farmhands, a few curious adults with nothing better to do on a Tuesday. I tightened my grip, heart hammering against my ribs like it wanted to escape my chest and run back home to safety.

"Bull out!" someone yelled.

The gate crashed open.

Eight seconds of pure chaos. Thunderbolt twisted like he was made of lightning himself, all power and fury and I was just this tiny human trying to prove something to nobody but myself. The world blurred into dust and adrenaline and the desperate need not to let go.

"NINE SECONDS!" the announcer screamed, but my hands were already empty, my body already flying through space and time and possibility.

I landed hard, tasting dirt and blood and something like victory.

Later, Jesse high-fived me so hard my shoulder popped. "Bro, you actually stayed on."

"Nine seconds," I said, grinning like an idiot while my mom's lecture about safety and college and proper nutrition played on loop in my head. "That's longer than I stayed on anything else all year."

"You're showing her the video, right?"

"Nah. Let it be my thing."

That night, I swallowed my vitamin without being told. Some things you do because you have to. Others — like staring down a bull that could kill you, climbing on anyway, and choosing to be terrified and alive all at once — you do because otherwise, you're just existing.

Lightning cracked outside my window. I fell asleep smiling, still tasting dust in my teeth.