Bull Session

The spinach had been stuck in my braces for twenty minutes, and I still hadn't worked up the courage to dig it out with my tongue. I was too busy trying to look cool while Mia, who I'd been crushing on since September, leaned against the barn wall watching me.

"You gonna pet him or what?" Jamie asked, nudging my shoulder. My best friend since third grade, currently being the most unhelpful human on the planet.

The bull stared at me. Actually glared. This was supposed to be easy—my cousin said this bull was chill, that she'd taken photos with him for her Instagram like fifty times. But this bull was not chill. This bull looked like he was calculating my entire life choices and finding them wanting.

"He's, uh, majestic," I said, Mia watching. I'd been taking those vitamins from the convenience store—the ones that promised "muscle growth" in neon letters on the bottle. Three weeks later, I still looked like a string bean who got rejected by the JV soccer team. But whatever, this was my moment.

I reached out. The bull snorted. Something behind us ripped.

The cable that cordoned off the exhibit area had snapped. Because earlier, trying to look capable, I'd volunteered to help set up the barriers. Apparently, I'd tied the knots with the same precision I used for my math homework: rushed and half-assed. Now the barrier swung loose, and the bull—who was NOT chill, who was NOT majestic, who was apparently a jerky escape artist—ducked under the loose section and trotted toward the fair entrance.

"SHIT," Jamie yelled.

People scattered. A toddler dropped a cotton candy. The bull paused, confused by freedom, then made a break for the food trucks.

"Go get him!" someone shouted.

"ME?" I yelped. But I was already running, which was when I felt the spinach finally dislodge from my braces and fly out of my mouth mid-stride. Because the universe has a twisted sense of comedy.

I tackled the bull near the corn dog stand. Not heroically—I basically collided with his side and we both went down in the most ungraceful tangle of limbs and hooves imaginable. He huffed, annoyed but apparently done with his rebellion, and let me grab his lead rope.

Mia found me afterward, sitting in the dirt, spinach remnants somewhere on my shirt, rope-burned hands shaking.

"That," she said, grinning, "was the dumbest, most impressive thing I've ever seen."

Jamie high-fived me. "Dude. You literally fought a bull."

"Technically I hugged him into submission?"

"Whatever. You're legendary now."

Maybe the vitamins were a scam. Maybe I couldn't tie knots properly. But as Mia helped me up and the bull chewed cud in the background, I figured sometimes legendary isn't about being perfect. Sometimes it's just about being the idiot who runs toward the bull when everyone else runs away.

Also, I needed to buy floss. Immediately.