Summer of Second Choices

The mechanical bull stared at me from across the rec hall, its painted-on smirk daring me to climb on. I'd been working at Camp Pinecrest for three weeks and still hadn't worked up the nerve. Everyone else rides it, I told myself. Even the middle schoolers.

"You're overthinking it again."

I jumped. Maya—the sphinx of Cabin 7—leaned against the doorframe, braiding a camper's hair with practiced ease. She'd earned the nickname because she never spoke unless absolutely necessary, and when she did, it was always something annoyingly perceptive.

"I'm not overthinking," I lied. "I'm strategically waiting."

She raised an eyebrow. That was it. Just one eyebrow, but it said everything.

My phone buzzed. The group chat from back home was blowing up about Friday night plans—padel at the new club that just opened. Padel. Of course. Last summer it was pickleball. Before that, frisbee golf. Whatever sport was trending, my so-called friends were all over it. I'd stopped trying to keep up sometime around eighth grade, which was probably why I was here instead of there.

"Your loss," Maya said, already turning back toward her cabin. "Open mic starts in ten. rumor is Emma's doing that song about her almost-stepdad."

Almost-stepdad. That was new drama.

The sun was setting outside, painting everything in that weird orange glow that made the camp look like a photo from someone else's memory. I remembered my first day here, how my mom had dropped me off with a cooler full of snacks and a look that said she felt guilty about the divorce but not guilty enough to not date Dave from accounting.

My phone buzzed again. "You coming???" followed by three bull emojis.

I stood up. The mechanical bull waited. My friends waited. My mom probably waited for Dave to respond to her text about something or other.

I walked past the bull, past the sphinx at the door, out into the orange-streaked twilight. Some choices aren't about choosing the right thing. They're about choosing your thing.

I pulled out my phone and typed: "Busy. Have fun." Then I headed toward the bonfire, where Emma was already tuning her guitar, and somewhere in the distance, someone was definitely about to make a complete fool of themselves on a mechanical bull.

And wasn't that the whole point of being sixteen anyway?