Salt in My Palms

The mechanical bull at Jake's birthday party was supposed to be funny. That's what Maya said when she dragged me toward it, her hand squeezing mine with terrifying confidence.

"You're not scared, are you?" She teased, eyebrows raised in that way that made my stomach do backflips.

I wasn't scared of the bull itself — I was scared of looking stupid in front of everyone, especially her. My palms were already sweating, leaving damp spots on my jeans where I'd wiped them three times since arriving.

The guy running the machine looked like he'd rather be anywhere else, feeding dollars into the cash box while his cousin shouted instructions over the throbbing bass. I climbed onto the bull's vinyl back, gripping the rope handle until my knuckles turned white.

"GO!" someone yelled, and suddenly I was clinging to a spinning, bucking nightmare.

I lasted four seconds. Maybe five. The bull jerked left, my center of gravity followed, and I slid off into the padding while everyone erupted in laughter. Not mean laughter — the good kind, like we were all in on some cosmic joke together.

Maya helped me up, grinning. "That was actually impressive for a rookie."

We retreated to the edge of the patio where the older kids had set up an old TV. Someone had connected a long cable from the house, stretching across the yard like a dark vein. They were playing videos from the school year — candid moments, caught on someone's phone and compiled into a montage of inside jokes we'd all lived through.

There we were on screen: Maya and me by the lockers. The lunchroom. The hallway. But it wasn't the footage that made my chest tighten. It was that Maya was still holding my hand, her thumb rubbing small circles against my palm like she'd forgotten to let go. Or maybe she hadn't forgotten.

"Hey," she said, not looking at the screen. "You want to get out of here? Walk on the beach?"

The bull spinning in the background. The cable feeding us memories. The salt air. Her hand in mine.

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, I do."

We left the party running toward the water, neither of us looking back at what we were supposed to be, just toward what we might become.