Mechanical Bull at the Pool Party

Maya's palms were sweating so bad she thought she might literally dissolve. Like, her hands were practically dripping as she clutched the solo cup filled with lukewarm soda, standing at the edge of Jessica's inground pool while basically everyone from sophomore year splashed around like they owned the place.

Her hair — which she'd spent forty-five minutes perfecting that morning — was already starting to frizz in the July humidity because of course it was.

"You going swimming or what?" called Tyler, that annoying kid from her history class who'd somehow morphed into actually kinda cute over summer break. He was doing cannonballs off the diving board like his life depended on it.

"Working up to it," Maya muttered, even though she'd been "working up to it" for like twenty minutes.

The real problem wasn't the pool. It was the mechanical bull someone's older brother had rented for the backyard, currently sitting there like this ridiculous inflatable beast surrounded by cheering freshmen. Last year at Sarah's party, Maya had attempted to ride it and lasted approximately 0.7 seconds before faceplanting into the grass while half the grade watched. It was, without exaggeration, the most embarrassing moment of her entire life.

Now Tyler was climbing out of the pool, water dripping everywhere, heading straight toward her.

"Your turn," he said, grinning. And then — before she could even process what was happening — he snatched the faded blue trucker hat off her head (she'd only worn it because her hair was misbehaving anyway) and tossed it onto the mechanical bull.

"No. Absolutely not," Maya said, but her voice came out all wrong.

"Come on, May. You can't let a hat outlast you."

So that's how she found herself climbing onto the inflatable bull, clutching her hat in one hand, hair already escaping her ponytail, while what felt like the entire sophomore class gathered around. The operator — some random senior — winked at her.

"Ready?"

"No," she said, "but let's do this anyway."

The bull bucked. She held on. The bull spun. She dug her knees in harder. The bull went sideways. She didn't fall.

She actually rode it for like eight seconds, which wasn't amazing but wasn't tragic either, and when she finally tumbled off into the padded landing zone, Tyler was the first one to reach out a hand to help her up.

"Not bad," he said, and something about the way he looked at her made her suddenly not care about her frizzy hair or her sweaty palms or anything else.

She put her hat back on, already planning next year's rematch.