Mechanical Bull Summer

Javi was tired of running. Not the good kind—the track kind, the lung-burning, muscle-shifting kind he actually liked. No, he was tired of running from Tyler and his crew, the same juniors who'd made his freshman year a living hell since day one.

"Dude, you coming?" Maya asked, fiddling with the charm bracelet she never took off. "The fair's leaving tomorrow."

Javi shrugged, trying to look chill even though his stomach did that thing it always did around her. "Yeah, sure. Meet you there?"

"Don't bail, Javi." She pointed at him, grinning. "I swear, if you flake—"

"I won't." He lied through his teeth.

But he showed up. Of course he did. He showed up wearing his lucky orange flannel—the one his abuela said made him look like a traffic cone, whatever that meant—because he needed every bit of luck he could get.

The fair smelled like fried everything and teenage desperation. Cinnamon and anxiety. Maya found him immediately, her curls frizzing in the humidity, dragging him toward the most cursed thing at the entire fair: the mechanical bull.

"Your turn," she said, shoving five dollars at the operator.

"Maya, no. Have you seen me?"

"Exactly." She smirked. "You're always running away from stuff. Time to hold on for once."

The bull was painted up like some demonic cartoon creature, its plastic horns glowing under the string lights. Javi climbed on, gripping the rope handle like his life depended on it. Because honestly? It felt like it did.

The operator started slow, then kicked it into gear. Javi's body shifted, years of track practice taking over. Balance. Core strength. Not fighting the movement but flowing with it. He heard Maya cheering, heard some random college girls shouting "HELL YEAH TRAFFIC CONE," and for the first time in forever, he wasn't running.

He was riding.

He lasted forty-seven seconds before getting tossed into the air pad, dizzy and breathless and somehow—impossibly—alive.

Maya high-fived him so hard his palm stung. "Okay, that was actually kind of sick."

"Kind of?" Javi raised an eyebrow, his heart still hammering.

"Fine. Totally sick." She smiled, and Javi thought maybe this summer wouldn't be so bad after all.

Then Tyler walked past with his friends, and for the first time, Javi didn't look away.

Some rides change you. Sometimes you stop running. Sometimes you just hold on tighter.

And sometimes, just sometimes, you discover you've been strong enough to ride the bull all along.