Ride or Cry

The vitamin C gummies sat on my dashboard like orange accusations. Mom swore they'd keep me from getting sick before finals, but honestly? I think she just wanted me to have something to obsess over besides tonight.

Tonight, as in: the date with Jake.

Jake, who'd been my lab partner since September and somehow hadn't noticed I existed until last week when he caught me singing along to my playlist in the parking lot. Jake, with the stupid perfect hair and the way he actually listened when people talked. Jake, who'd asked if I wanted to go to the county fair and I'd said yes before my brain could process what was happening.

"You gonna eat those?" Maya asked from the passenger seat, pointing at the gummies.

"No. They're basically chewable anxiety." I adjusted my shirt for the thousandth time. "How do I look?"

"Like you're about to face a bull in an arena wearing a tutu," she said, which was Maya's way of saying you look fine but also please calm down.

Speaking of bulls.

"You're not seriously going to do that, are you?" Maya asked, following my gaze toward the mechanical bull ride.

"Jake mentioned it. Like, three times."

"So you're gonna ride a mechanical bull on a first date? Girl, that's a third date activity minimum."

I grabbed my phone from the cupholder. The charging cable was frayed at the end, exposing wires like something that had given up on life. Typical. The one time I needed to scroll through TikTok for courage, my cable betrayed me.

"There he is," Maya whispered.

Jake waved from across the parking lot, looking unfairly good in a flannel shirt that somehow worked with the humidity. My stomach did that thing where it forgot how to be an organ.

"You got this," Maya said. "And hey, if the bull thing goes south, just jump off. No shame in survival."

She wasn't wrong.

Jake grinned as I walked over. "Ready to see who lasts longer?"

"Oh, you're going down, Saylor."

I didn't go down. Not immediately, anyway. I stayed on that mechanical bull for forty-seven seconds, which honestly felt like a lifetime of holding onto fake leather for dear life while my date cheered and a crowd of strangers watched like I was some kind of rodeo superhero.

When I finally slid off, laughing so hard I couldn't breathe, Jake didn't care that my hair was a mess or that I'd definitely have bruises tomorrow. He just smiled like I'd just invented something cool.

"That was epic," he said, handing me a funnel cake.

"Epic? I looked like a potato in a tornado."

"A really brave potato." His shoulder brushed mine as we walked toward the Ferris wheel. "Hey, I'm glad you said yes to tonight."

"Me too."

And somewhere in the distance, the mechanical bull kept spinning, but for the first time all night, I wasn't thinking about falling off.