Mechanical Bull, Broken Summer

The papaya sat on the kitchen counter like a grenade, fluorescent orange and impossibly ripe. Mom had bought it because some wellness influencer said it'd help with 'teen hormones,' whatever that meant. I was seventeen, not going through puberty again, but try telling her that.

"Try it, Maya," she'd insisted that morning. "It's like nature's candy."

It tasted like wet socks and disappointment.

Now I was at Tyler's end-of-summer pool party, the papaya still burning the back of my throat, watching everyone else live their best lives. Tyler's backyard was basically a water park — his dad was that kind of rich — and the pool was packed with people from school. The popular kids. The ones whose Instagram stories were always perfectly curated, lives that looked like they'd been edited in post-production.

I'd been swimming for hours, mostly to avoid conversation, my fingers pruned like I'd spent a week in the bath. My best friend Jenna had ditched me for some college guy she'd been DMing, leaving me floating alone in the shallow end, nursing a lukewarm soda.

Then someone announced the mechanical bull was set up.

Because apparently rich people just have those. For parties.

A crowd gathered. People were taking turns getting thrown off, everyone filming, everyone laughing. Even the kids who usually sat alone were watching. I stayed in the water, pretending to be fascinated by a pool noodle.

"Maya! Your turn!" Tyler called out. He was shirtless, chlorinated, everything I couldn't be — effortless in a way I'd been trying to fake since freshman year.

I shook my head. "I'm good."

"Come on, don't be boring," someone else said. A girl I didn't recognize, maybe from our sister school. She held out a hand. "It's fun, I promise."

Everyone was looking now. The moment stretched, thin and terrible. I could say no. I could swim to the other side, pretend I hadn't heard. I could stay in my lane, literally and metaphorically, safe and unseen.

Or I could do the thing.

I pulled myself out of the pool, water streaming down my legs, and grabbed her hand. The papaya taste was still there, but underneath it, something else was rising. Something like adrenaline, or maybe just the realization that I was tired of watching from the shallow end.

The mechanical bull spun beneath me, and for eight seconds, I held on. My hair was a wet mess. My swimsuit was probably revealing too much. But I wasn't watching anyone else live their life anymore.

I was too busy living mine.