Rodeo Waves

4:45 AM. My alarm blared and I dragged myself out of bed, moving on pure autopilot. If being a **zombie** was an Olympic sport, I'd medal before my first cup of coffee. Two weeks of hell week at swim practice will do that to you – laps before dawn, laps during school, laps until my arms felt like jelly.

"You look like death," my best friend Maya whispered as I slid into my AP Bio seat, still smelling faintly of chlorine.

"Thanks, appreciate the pep talk," I shot back, half-asleep.

The real problem wasn't the swimming – okay, the swimming WAS the problem, but Jason made everything worse. He'd been on my case since freshman year, ever since I accidentally called him "Justin" at that party. Classic **bull** in a china shop, except the china shop was my social anxiety and he was stampeding through it daily.

"Still doing your little water ballet, princess?" Jason smirked in the hallway, his friends laughing on cue. "Maybe try a real sport sometime."

I kept walking, same as always. But something snapped that afternoon at practice.

My hometown was weird like that – we had a swim team AND a rodeo team. The overlap was basically zero people. Until my coach mentioned it: "Summer Creek Rodeo's this weekend. They need volunteers. Good way to earn those community service hours."

So there I was, Saturday morning, standing at the rodeo grounds in my swim team warmup jacket, watching guys my age climb onto massive animals that wanted nothing more than to buck them into next week.

Then I saw it – the sign-up sheet for the junior division. No experience necessary. Before I could talk myself out of it, I'd scrawled my name.

"You're actually doing this?" Maya stared at me like I'd grown a second head.

"Why not?" I shrugged, trying to sound braver than I felt. "Worst that happens is I get thrown. It's not like I haven't been knocked down before."

The bull waited in the chute, snorting and pawing at the dirt. My heart hammered against my ribs. But as I settled onto its back, wrapped my hand in the rope, something clicked – the same focus I found in the water, the same calm before the race.

The gate flew open. Eight seconds of pure chaos, my body fighting to find balance while the world spun sideways. I didn't make it the full time – got bucked off at six – but as I dusted myself off, grinning despite the bruises, Jason caught my eye from the stands.

For once, he wasn't laughing.

Monday morning, I walked through those hallway doors exhausted, sore, and something else – proud. Jason said nothing. But when his friends started their usual routine, he just shook his head.

"Let it go, guys. She's cooler than any of us."

The water still waits for me at 4:45 AM. But now, when I dive in, I'm not swimming away from anything anymore. I'm swimming toward something – or maybe, finally, toward myself.